ARLINGTON -- Boos rained down from the crowd of over 27,000 fans at Globe Life Field. And this evening, those boos weren’t for the opposition. Instead, it was the comedy of errors that took place in front of them in the first four innings that built up to the Rangers’ 12-2 loss to the Twins.
The Rangers were down 5-0 to the Twins through three innings, after starter Kumar Rocker allowed a leadoff homer to Trevor Larnach to start the game. And -- if you can believe it -- the fourth somehow got even worse. Minnesota sent every batter to the plate, knocking out Rocker and hitting around reliever Cal Quantrill soon after.
The Twins ultimately recorded five runs on four hits, a walk and those two errors that inning en route to the Rangers’ loss that was compounded by offensive deflation throughout the night.
“Obviously, the start of the game wasn't great,” said manager Skip Schumaker. “ You look at the first pitch, we just didn't start off like we wanted to start off, and just fell behind really early. It was tough to catch up.
“I've said it before: ugly losses like this, when you don't do well, really, in all facets of the game, it starts with me. We made some fundamental mistakes throughout the game that we have to clean up, but overall, just a tough, tough loss in all facets.”
The Rangers have additionally struggled against teams under .500, specifically, as they are 17-23 against teams with losing records and 19-14 against teams with winning records. That is a big reason they continue to hover around that .500 mark and fail to seize opportunities to propel themselves more competitively into an American League Wild Card race that is anything but intensely competitive.
Despite that, the loss truly comes back to the first inning, which has been a struggle for all Rangers pitchers so far this season.
Rocker got the Rangers in an early hole, giving up the leadoff homer to Larnach on the second pitch of the game. He allowed another three-run shot to Kody Clemens in the third, and didn’t make it out of the fourth after Brandon Nimmo’s missed fly ball off the bat of Byron Buxton knocked him out of the game.
“I think it was just picking the right pitch,” Rocker said after a career-high seven runs in 3 1/3 innings. “I think I got beat a lot of times on a pitch that wasn't necessarily the best one I had at that moment. I think it was just a poorly pitched game overall. I gave the team no shot to fight back at all. It's overall just a frustrating, poorly pitched game.”
Rangers starting pitchers have now allowed 10 leadoff homers in 73 games this season. That's nearly double the Giants, who are the next closest with six. Additionally, the Rangers are now 26-8 when they score first and 9-30 when the opponent scores first.
Crooked numbers are real, Schumaker said. The first-inning crooked numbers are telling the story of the Rangers' season so far.
“It's really important to throw up a zero in the first inning,” he said. “For our starting pitchers, that's been preached. We're going to continue to preach it. When it's a crooked number, that is a game-changing, momentum-shifting inning right away, right out of the gate. You're out on the defensive side for a long time. It's a race to four runs, and when a crooked number starts the first inning, it's a tough time to come back.”
It’s not all on the pitching, though. The Rangers’ offense, for lack of a better term, deflates when it gets down early.
Schumaker said part of that comes down to the offense playing defensively: taking pitches, trying to work counts to get the pitcher a breather and all of a sudden finding themselves behind in the count and then back on the field soon after.
First baseman Jake Burger said it’s not a panic on the offensive end. But there is a sense of the need to turn up the intensity to get them back into games when they’re down early.
“I think you kind of feel a little bit of a deflation, which shouldn't happen, you know?” Burger said. “You get nine frames for a reason. … This is a sport that gives you an opportunity to score a crooked number every single inning. I think that there's an element of attrition in the sport that I think is a very important part of the sport. So I think that's a really key issue that needs to be addressed, for sure.”