ARLINGTON — The Rangers believe Wyatt Langford has 30-homers, 30-steals ability.
But he’d gone into both a power and speed brownout since the All-Star break. Until Monday. Langford’s three-run sixth-inning homer was the key instrument to getting the Rangers back into a game they’d eventually turn into their biggest comeback win of the season, a 7-6, 10-inning walkoff over Arizona.
Langford began Monday’s game without a homer or a stolen base in the second half. He ended it as one of the many heroes in a big win. Langford’s three-run homer capped a four-run inning against Ryne Nelson that saw the Rangers erase most of a 6-1 deficit.
“I’ve said it’s going to happen, it’s going to come,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said. “You could just the see the determination in him in that at-bat. He had good swings and got hold of it.”
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To be sure, Langford had plenty of chances to make adjustments to Nelson. By the time he pulled a full-count four-seamer into the left field stands, he’d seen the pitch 13 times over three at-bats. Nelson did not throw him anything other than fastballs during the evening. With good reason. Through his two seasons in the majors, Langford entered the game hitting only .230 with a .395 slugging percentage against the four-seamer.
It had perhaps led to him pressing to homer. He last homered on July 11 at Houston and last stole a base on July 12, also at Houston. And he’d taken a 2-for-17 stretch into the Arizona series.
“When he’s right on, he’s pulling more balls,” Bochy said. “He’s not doing that as much. He’s staying on the breaking ball a little bit better and doing a good job of controlling strikes on it and getting his walks. Sometimes you can overdo that a little bit and lose a little bit of what you do well. It’s a fine line.”
It’s another way of saying Langford can fall into a pattern of getting passive at the plate. Since the All-Star break, Langford had taken 10 called third strikes, tied for the fifth most in the majors. For the year, he had taken 38, seventh most in the majors.
There isn’t as easy an explanation for why he’s stopped running as often, though he has been caught on three consecutive attempts. One explanation may be the proliferation of lefties the Rangers are facing lately. In addition to being harder for the club to hit, they are better at controlling the running game.
As a team, the Rangers are just 9 for 16 (56%) on stolen base attempts.
“We’re not shutting him down or anything,” Bochy said. “I will say some of the pitchers we’re facing are not giving us as much of a chance to run. We’ve made some outs on the bases lately. We’re trying to pick our spots a little more so we’re not running ourselves out of innings. But [Langford] is not being shut down.”
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