Thoughts on a 5-2 Rangers loss – Lone Star Ball
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Photo by Gregory Fisher/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Yankees 5, Rangers 2
Thank you, Jonah Heim, for avoiding the shutout.
The pitching was fine. Patrick Corbin allowed three runs in five innings, including a home run to Ben Rice on a hanging curveball that you felt was going to be gone as soon as Rice made contact.
But whatevs. Three runs in five innings is a reasonable expectation for Corbin. No complaints there, really.
Or let’s put it this way…if three runs in five innings of work against the best offense in the league is a disappointment to you, your expectations for Patrick Corbin are skewed.
Incidentally, if you go to Wikipedia you will discover that there is an actual entry for the View Askewniverse, the version of reality in which many of Kevin Smith’s films take place. His production company is View Askew Productions, from which the fictional universe derives its name.
Have I ever mentioned that I hate Ben Affleck? I do. The reason why is that the first time I ever saw him (I’m pretty sure) was in Chasing Amy, and I hated his character in that movie SO MUCH for being a petty selfish jerk who stumbled into a relationship with an awesome woman and fucks it up because he can’t let go of, and accept, her past. It culminates in one of the all time uncomfortable scenes in cinema history, also featuring Jason Lee as Banky, a character I also hated, but in a much more direct way because Banky is supposed to be an asshole.
I used to hate Jason Lee as well because of that movie, and I kind of hated Ryan Reynolds for a while, both because of the fact that the ads for Van Wilder (and I never saw Van Wilder, but I swear I saw promos for it like 500 times in the spring of 2002) portrayed him in a way that made me hate his very essence and because he reminded me of Jason Lee.
I saw Bert Kreischer perform standup a few years ago. I hadn’t heard of him before my wife and I were invited to go see him, and I learned later that the Van Wilder may (or may not, this appears to be a point of controversy) have been “loosely inspired” by a Rolling Stone article about Kreischer. I’m not sure if knowing that before I went in would have skewed (using that word again!) my view of Kreischer. But he was very funny and his routine about his summer abroad in Russia with his Russian class is one of the great all time standup bits.
Anyway, I don’t hate Jason Lee or Ryan Reynolds anymore. I do hate Ben Affleck.
I think the thing that bothered me so much about Affleck is that he found himself in a romantic relationship with a character played by Joey Lauren Adams, who was extremely lovely (and in real life was dating Kevin Smith, giving hope for all us schlubby homely guys with a sense of humor) and was into him way more than she should have been, given that she professed to be a lesbian when they met. And he loved her and thought she was awesome but couldn’t get over the fact that she was more sexually experienced than him in terms of what she had done — in particular, hearing from Banky that she was known as “Fingercuffs” due to a three way she participated in with two guys in high school.
Banky did this because he didn’t like the relationship Ben Affleck’s character had with Joey Lauren Adams’ character and was trying to sabotage it. As I said, he sucked, and made me hate Jason Lee for a while.
She admits to it in another historically awkward scene at a hockey game, explaining that understanding her sexuality was a challenge for her because unlike him (and, implicitly, most people) she wasn’t garden variety hetero and struggled with that as a teen and had to figure out and accept who she was. And despite him being a big asshole about the whole thing, she still wants to be with him. And as I mentioned above, he screwed it up.
And it was maddening to me. Part of it, in retrospect, was because at that time I was coming out of a relationship with a woman who, when I met her, said she was a lesbian (I will note that I looked (and still look) a lot more like Kevin Smith than Ben Affleck) and was still processing and coming to grips with that breakup. But the bigger part of it was that, immature as I might have still been at that point, I grokked the fact that people are the sum of their experiences. Everything they have done and seen and lived through is what made them who they are today.
So if you love someone, love who they are now, you have to accept that they are the way they are now because of their past. You can’t separate the two. Those experiences are part of what made them the person you love now. And if you can’t accept that, if you can’t get over that, then you’re a solipsistic child who can’t accept that there’s a world that exists outside of you.
Anyway.
The bullpen was fine. I mean, Caleb Boushley gave up a bullshit opposite field home run to Aaron Judge but it was a bullshit opposite field home run in their bullshit park. And it was the bottom of the eighth and the Rangers were already down 3-0 and its Aaron Freaking Judge, and we can just be satisfied at a certain level it was a bullshit home run and not, like, a majestic dinger like Ben Rice hit.
No, the issue was the offense, once again. An offense that struck out 14 times, 10 times against Yankees rookie Will Warren.
I have to assume the game plan coming into the game was to be patient at work the count and all that. I say I have to assume that because it seemed like the Rangers watched a whole lot of hittable fastballs for strike one from Warren.
They seemed to watch a lot of hittable fastballs for strikes from Warren, period, actually. He got 20 called strikes on pitches in the fastball classification (four seamers and sinkers) and it seemed like a whole bunch of those were it the hittin’ zone.
Still, the Rangers had the ability to do some damage and score some runs. They had eight hits — four of the extra base variety — and a pair of walks. They got a gift runner to start the game, with Josh Smith reaching on a strike three that bounced in front of the plate and caromed away from the catcher.
Smith ended up being erased on a strike-em-out-throw-em-out double play where Josh Jung watched a 3-2 fastball down the middle go by him, which more or less summed up how the game went.
Jung had two hits in the game, but neither of them came in that first inning when a single would have put runners on first and third with one out.
Adolis Garcia had a hit, with one out and two on in the sixth, but it was a popup down the right field line that was in that no man’s land where you think maybe it will be caught, and so the runners have to stay close and could only advance one base. Marcus Semien had a hit in the game, but it didn’t come in that inning, when he struck out looking on a 2-2 pitch (though I will note he got completed hosed on a pitch out of the strike zone that was called a strike earlier in the at bat). Joc Pederson was after Semien, and he had a walk in the game, but not in the sixth, when he struck out swinging to end the inning with the bases loaded.
Garcia struck out on his final three at bats, including a swinging strike three on a sweeper from Warren that looked like it was headed to the dugout. I mean, it was one of the farthest out of the strike zone pitches you’ll see someone swing at.
The Rangers were 1 for 7 with runners in scoring position. The one hit was that Garcia pop up single.
Hitting with runners in scoring position isn’t a particular skill, and these things balance out over time. But it would be nice if there were a big balancing 6 for 9 with RISP or something like that on Wednesday.
Patrick Corbin hit 93.4 mph with his sinker, averaging 91.6 mph. Jacob Webb topped out at 94.5 mph with his fastball. Caleb Boushley reached 92.5 mph with his sinker.
Josh Jung had a 106.7 mph single. Wyatt Langford had a 106.2 mph double. Jake Burger had a 103.1 mph flyout.
Five more to go on this road trip. I’d really like the Rangers to win three.
