The Texas Rangers scored two runs but the New York Yankees scored three runs.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s winning pitcher was Leiter. No, not Jack. Instead, his cousin Mark. Jack Leiter himself just didn\u2019t have it today. And indeed unless he takes a big step forward with his command, it\u2019s likely that we\u2019ll just have to accept that outings like today are a possible outcome.<\/p>\n
Trying to enter the slipstream provided by Nathan Eovaldi\u2019s immaculate outing last night with an opportunity for the Rangers to sweep New York and leapfrog them into an American League playoff spot, Leiter lasted just 3 1\/3 innings and threw just 33 strikes in his 68 pitches.<\/p>\n
Leiter left lucky to have allowed just one earned run, two runs total, after giving up three hits and four walks in his short stint with traffic on the bases throughout.<\/p>\n
Even so, while Leiter did the club no favors in their attempt to win their ninth consecutive home game by leaving a taxed bullpen to pick up the slack, the offense also withered in the final contest of a 13 games in 13 day stretch.<\/p>\n
No matter what the pitching staff did \u2014 unless you\u2019re Eovaldi, I suppose \u2014 two runs isn\u2019t going to win you a game most days. The Rangers collected six hits and four walks off of Yankees starter Carlos Rodon, but converted those into just two runs. Later, a rally died with the bases loaded. In the ninth, they left the tying run at second.<\/p>\n
Getting the big hit with runners on was the issue again (2-for-8 with RISP, only one of which produced a run, and eleven left on base). Same as it ever was, I suppose. This felt like a May 2025 kind of Rangers loss. Only three runs allowed from the league\u2019s best duct-taped-together-pitching staff but a dearth of crooked number innings from the bats to fail in a close final score.<\/p>\n
Even so, the Rangers did take this series from the club directly ahead of them in the Wild Card standings so that takes some of sting off this one, especially after the trying trip out west that preceded it. Now they\u2019ll get a rest as we enter the dog days of summer with something to fight for.<\/p>\n
Player of the Game: Lefty side-winder Hoby Milner had been seeing more action in late inning situations of late but today he was called upon early to clean up for Leiter in the fourth inning and ended up tossing 2 2\/3 innings of shutout ball. That effort proved critical in keeping Texas in the game after Leiter had languished in the first three innings.<\/p>\n
Milner has sneakily been one of the league\u2019s best relievers and he\u2019s taken on any role that has been asked of him. Today it was long relief in a close game and he delivered to give Texas a chance that was ultimately missed as Robert Garcia allowed his third late-innings momentum-swinging home run in as many appearances. This time it was a pinch hit, solo home run from Paul Goldschmidt in the top of the seventh that was ultimately the game winner.<\/p>\n
Another candidate would be Ezequiel Duran, who had three of Texas\u2019 eight hits and scored both of their runs. Duran reaching three times out of the No. 9 hole should have been a boon but the middle of the order had another quiet day.<\/p>\n
Up Next: The Rangers have their first day off in a while tomorrow before opening up a series against the National League\u2019s Philadelphia Phillies beginning on Friday night from The Shed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Texas Rangers scored two runs but the New York Yankees scored three runs. Today\u2019s winning pitcher was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2393],"tags":[5,38560,4,149,1567,69,3240],"class_list":{"0":"post-231028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas-rangers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-game-day-threads","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-rangers","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-texas-rangers","14":"tag-texasrangers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114986528378114856","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}