LOS ANGELES — It wasn’t necessarily a plea, because it’s far too early in the regular season for that sort of tone, but a request was placed by Rangers manager Skip Schumaker before his team finished the first series of its three-city road trip.
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“We’ve got to get to the starter at some point,” Schumaker said Sunday morning inside the visitor’s dugout at Dodgers Stadium. “We’ve got to have more quality at-bats at the top. We’re trying to get guys on base as much as we can, higher pitch counts, all that stuff plays into it.”
It was closer to a manifestation. The Rangers walked 10 times — twice as many as their previous season high — and scored three times against a Dodgers bullpen that was thrust into the game early and was forced to use its high-leverage arms in the two games before in a 5-2 win against the back-to-back World Series champions. They saw 179 pitches, the second-most they’ve seen in a game this year, and forced Dodgers right-hander Roki Sasaki to throw 94 in four innings.
“That’s who we need to be more like,” Schumaker said after the game. “It doesn’t need to be double-digit walks, but we just need to get guys inside the strike zone. We didn’t do a ton with runners in scoring position, but I’ve said this before, as long as we get guys in traffic, we’ve done our job and the big hit will come.”
The dozen runners left on base and the 2 for 14 line with runners in scoring position are far more palatable if additional opportunities are created in abundance. The Rangers stranded two runners on base in the top of the first inning and struck out three times with one in scoring position, but they forced Sasaki to throw 22 pitches. They were 0 for 2 with catcher Danny Jansen (walk) and third baseman Josh Jung (double) in scoring position in the second but made Sasaki throw another 20 pitches. By the third, when center fielder Evan Carter drilled a middle-middle fastball for his second home run of the series to tie the score, they’d pushed Sasaki into the 70-pitch range.
“We’ve been trying to grind these guys down and pass the baton to the next guy,” Jansen, who walked three times, said. “That’s the mentality. Obviously we’ve got guys with thump in here and guys that can pass the baton and take a walk. It was just a great showing one-through-nine.”
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In the second inning, after Carter’s home run, designated hitter Joc Pederson singled, took second on a wild pitch and scored on a single from second baseman Josh Smith. Jung walked to lead off the sixth, advanced to third on an erroneously fielded bunt from left fielder Ezequiel Duran and scored on a groundball by right fielder Brandon Nimmo. In the seventh, after Jung singled and Duran walked, a Nimmo hit and a wild pitch scored both of them.
Texas Rangers’ Joc Pederson (3) slides into home plate as Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing (68) goes to tag him with the ball during the third inning of a baseball game Sunday, April 12, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Caroline Brehman) (Caroline Brehman/AP)
“Balls put in play with runners on is always a good thing,” Carter, who also walked twice as left fielder Wyatt Langford’s substitute in the two-hole, said. “Pressure on the defense, and the pitcher especially, it definitely means a lot more with runners on.”
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It means a lot more with right-hander Jacob deGrom on the mound. The 37-year-old allowed a leadoff home run to Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani and proceeded to pitch six shutout innings afterward.
“After I gave up the homer,” deGrom said, “I was like, alright, we’ve got to lock this in.”
His offense did the same.