Nine innings of nothing, then a tenth of everything
Texas needed eleven hits and ten innings to produce two runs on Friday night in Arlington, and the one that mattered arrived without a swing. The Rangers beat the Los Angeles Angels 2-1 on a throwing error by Denzer Guzman, the same infielder who had put the visitors in front a few minutes earlier.
Before that, almost nothing. MacKenzie Gore gave Texas six scoreless innings. Reid Detmers matched him with six of his own, and every one of the six hits he allowed was a single. Twelve innings of shutout starting pitching in one game is the sort of line that usually decides a night rather than merely delaying it.
Try it for $0.99.
Guzman gives, then Guzman takes away
The tenth broke the pattern in both directions. Guzman doubled off Tyler Alexander to score the runner and put the Angels ahead 1-0. Wyatt Langford answered in the bottom half with a double of his own off Ben Joyce, who ended the night as the losing pitcher.
Texas then drew an intentional walk to set up a force. Ezequiel Duran hit a hard grounder to third, Guzman fielded it cleanly, and his throw to second sailed wide of the bag. Langford never stopped running. The game ended on the play.
Duran did most of the hitting
Duran finished with four of the eleven Texas hits, a share that says as much about the rest of the order as it does about him. The Rangers put runners on all evening against Detmers and the Angels bullpen and kept leaving them there, which is how a team collects double-figure hits and still needs a fielding mistake to win.
Los Angeles will look at the same box score and find it harder to read. Their starter was the best pitcher on either side, they scored first, and they still boarded the bus with a loss. Detmers gets nothing on his record for six innings of one-hit-at-a-time work, and Joyce takes the defeat for a run he did not really concede.
Discover the rest of our MLB news on MathODDS!
in your pocket.
Real-time notifications & alerts
Leave a Reply