ANAHEIM, Calif. — The home team’s fans protested ownership outside of the stadium gates before first pitch, and even when the usually joyful “tarps off” fad overtook the stadium’s third deck midway through the game, a rowdy shirtless bunch still demanded the hapless franchise to be sold in the form of a chant.
The 5-2 loss against the Los Angeles Angels at Angels Stadium Saturday night clinched both a series loss and an under-.500 road trip that represented a theoretical golden opportunity for a Rangers team that had just emerged from a difficult first quarter of the season. The Rangers played three teams — the Houston Astros, the Colorado Rockies and the Angels — that owned one of the three worst records in baseball at the time of each series and will finish the nine-game stretch with more losses than wins.
The Rangers had meaningful opportunities to capitalize in each loss, and on Saturday, the concept of such represented their demise. They stranded the bases loaded three times, struck out in three of their four at-bats with them juiced and left nearly a dozen runners on base in a game that was never once entirely out of reach.
“We just left guys on base all night,” Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said. “Bases loaded three times, one or two times with one out, just tough to not get any runs across there.”
Rangers first baseman Jake Burger was responsible for two of the three strikeouts in those situations when the team was down only a run, thanks in part to right-hander Nathan Eovaldi’s seven innings of three-run ball. In the third inning, with catcher Kyle Higashioka (walk), designated hitter Joc Pederson (single) and left fielder Alejandro Osuna (single) on with two outs, he struck out on three pitches from Angels right-hander Walbert Ureña to squash the threat. In the fifth, with right fielder Brandon Nimmo (double), shortstop Michael Helman (walk) and Osuna (single) on with two outs again, he foul-tipped Ureña’s changeup for strike three and lost control of his bat in the process.
They loaded the bases again in the eighth inning, this time with only one out and still down only one run, but right-hander Jose Fermin struck out Higashioka on four pitches and got pinch-hitter Danny Jansen to fly out on two. Los Angeles scored two runs in the bottom half of that frame on second baseman Oswald Peraza’s bases-loaded single against left-hander Tyler Alexander to extend the lead. The Angels, baseball’s only team with a win count still in the teens this season, have hit .270 with the bases loaded this season. The Rangers have hit .205 in those situations with more strikeouts than hits.
“I think we just need to take a step back and focus on the fact that we are creating productive situations,” Higashioka, whose solo home run in the seventh inning provided half of the total offense, said, “but now, when we get into those, maybe it’s slowing the game down a little bit to not get over-amped about the situation or whatever.”
The situation at large has dropped the Rangers to third in the American League West, behind the Athletics and Seattle Mariners, and outside of the postseason picture after only three wins in their last eight games. The Astros took two of three against the Rangers last weekend and held them to three combined runs in their two victories. The Rockies forced the Rangers to execute a unique ninth-inning rally to stave off a series loss in Wednesday’s finale. The Angels took the first two games of the three-game set in front of displeased spectators despite the fact that the Rangers ran both of their aces out.
“We’ve been in almost every single game,” Schumaker said, “and that’s probably the tough part.”
Or, to rephrase it, they’ve had opportunities.
“We’ve got some stuff to clean up,” third baseman Josh Jung said, “and hopefully move forward from it and win some ballgames.”