Rangers Let Lead Slip Against Angels

On Friday, the Rangers saw a 6-2 lead vanish in the late innings against Anaheim, falling to the visiting Angels by a 9-6 tally.

The Angels marched out to an early 2-0 lead, off homers by Shohei Ohtani in the top of the first and Jo Adell in the second. The first inning-long ball came off Rangers starting pitcher Matt Bush’s first pitch of the game. Bush only pitched the first inning, allowing the one run while striking out three batters.

Adell hit his second-inning home run off Albert Abreu, who relieved Bush. Aside from the earned run, Abreu pitched two innings and struck out three.

In the bottom of the second inning, the Rangers scored their first run when Charlie Culberson knocked in Nathaniel Lowe on a fielder’s choice after Lowe led the inning off with a single. The run cut the Anaheim lead to 2-1.

Kolby Allard replaced Abreu on the mound for Texas in the top of the fourth and earned a 1-2-3 inning on just six pitches, including a called strike three on Adell to end the top of the frame.

The Texas bats heated up in the bottom of the fourth with back-to-back singles by Andy Ibanez and Nick Solak. Culberson then belted a line-drive double to left field, scoring both baserunners and giving the Rangers their first lead of the day, 3-2. 

Eli White then singled to the right, pushing Culberson to third base. Anaheim pulled starting pitcher Reid Detmers and replaced him with Austin Warren, who promptly walked Marcus Semien to load the bases and set the table for Corey Seager, who hit his first home run of the season the day before.

Following an Angels’ mound visit to talk strategy, Anaheim opted to intentionally walk Seager, scoring a run and giving the Rangers a 3-2 lead. With that walk, Seager became the third player in Major League Baseball’s (MLB) history to be intentionally walked with the bases loaded.

MLB.com reports Seager looked confused by the decision.

“I’ve seen it done to the best hitter in the game in Barry Bonds,” Rangers manager Chris Woodward said post-game. “It’s obviously a compliment to Seager, to how good he is. Who knows, maybe it’s a grand slam, or maybe it’s a double play? But that wasn’t the reason they won. They didn’t get out of it because of that. And because of that, we ended up scoring a few runs.”

Seager, Bonds, and Josh Hamilton are the only three to be walked in such a fashion. Hamilton achieved the feat in 2008 and played for the Texas Rangers from 2008-to-2012 and then again in 2005 and is a member of the team’s hall of fame. 

Mitch Garver then hit a sacrifice fly to center field, scoring White and pushing the tally to 5-2 Texas. Seager then trotted home when a balk was called on Warren, giving Texas a 6-2 lead heading into the fifth inning. The Rangers did not score again for the rest of the contest.

Texas watched the 6-2 lead fade away in the top of the fifth when the Angles netted five runs. After retiring the first batter he faced in the inning, Allard gave up a home run to Kurt Suzuki and a single to Andrew Velazquez before Ohtani hit his second homer of the game — this one a three-run shot which pulled the contest to 6-5 Texas.

Allard then allowed a double to Mike Trout, and Jared Walsh scored Trout from second on a single to center field to knot the game 6-6. Greg Holland relieved Allard after that and gave up a single to Anthony Rendon, which pushed Walsh to third, and then Brandon Marsh hit a sac fly to center to score Walsh, giving the Angels a 7-6 lead that they did not relinquish.

Nick Snyder took over pitching duties for Texas, pitched a scoreless sixth inning, and was replaced by Josh Sborz, who gave up a two-run homer to Walsh (scoring Trout, who walked to lead off the inning) for the final two runs of the night.

Allard took the loss leaving him at 0-1 this year.

The loss drops Texas to 2-5 in the season and places the Angels at .500 with a 4-4 record. There were 28,733 fans at Globe Life Field that night, with 16 MPH winds blowing from left to right and a game-time temperature of 82 degrees.

The Angels and Rangers end their four-game series on Saturday night with Noah Syndergaard (1-0, 0.00 ERA) taking the hill for Anaheim and Taylor Hearn (0-0, 2.25 ERA) handling starting pitching duties for Texas.