I think it's significant that, in an 8 - 0 one-hit shutout, the first base gained all year by the Rangers was by Rougned Odor, and the first hit was by Ryan Rua.

To be fair, both Moreland and Fielder made the Oakland defense work hard, but Choo and Andrus were worryingly ineffective with their swings.  And I'm still not sold on Leonys hitting leadoff instead of Choo.  Granted, Sonny Gray was hitting the edge of the strike zone and getting the called strike, so we didn't get a lot of opportunity to see Rangers take many pitches...and when the late innings rolled around, Gray was throwing more balls and the Rangers were not swinging...so I don't think last night's effort was a red light for the offense.

But...if the Rangers are going to post a winning record this year they're gonna have to do better than they did last night.  I know it's accepted to say that a pitcher was just "on" and there was no way you were gonna get hits but I've never bought into that idea.  If nothing else, Gray laid in that first pitch strike right in the middle of the strike zone the first two times through the order, and almost no one ever swung at it.  That's on Dave Magadan, who should have been telling people to go after that first pitch.

Posted by: Ben at 10:00 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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