ARLINGTON -- In the fifth inning Wednesday night, Jack Leiter sprinted to back up the errant throw from the outfield, just as every pitcher is taught in Little League.
But out of nowhere, mid-sprint to cut off the ball, Leiter tumbled onto the track beside the visitors’ on-deck circle after tripping over a pile of gear while everyone in Globe Life Field collectively held their breath.
After a brief visit from the trainers, Leiter remained in the game to get the last out of a hectic fifth inning, ending what was a promising outing with a less-than-ideal finish.
“It was kind of a freak play,” Leiter said. “I think I got lucky. …You don't see much [watching it unfold]. You give up a base hit with a runner in scoring position, you're kind of just brainwashed into going and backing up home.
"You see a loose ball, and you immediately worry that it's gonna find a hole in the dugout, which is an extra base. I was trying to protect that at all costs. I was looking at the ball sprinting after it. It didn't even cross my mind, the stuff on the on-deck circle.”
That single sequence was an illustration of what plagued the Rangers’ in their 8-4 loss to the Pirates on Wednesday night. It was good until it all fell apart.
For the first four innings, Leiter cruised, despite allowing a run in the first. Following Marcell Ozuna’s RBI single in the first inning, the right-hander held Pirates batters to 0-for-10 with a walk ahead of Spencer Horwitz’s single to lead off the fifth.
The high point of Leiter’s evening was an 11-pitch battle with Brandon Lowe, which Leiter won by getting him to swing through his new cutter for a punchout. It was the only cutter Leiter threw in his 84 pitches, though he noted he “wishes we would’ve used it more.”
“I just thought he was in sync, his mechanics were in sync,” manager Skip Schumaker said. “I thought everything was just going exactly how he wanted it to go. Obviously stuff happened in the fifth, but I thought he was really good. Unfortunately, that fifth inning kind of got away.”
Leiter, on the other hand, called it “beyond frustrating” for his outing to end like that, especially as he has continued working on getting deeper into games. He expressed both shock and disbelief because he felt like he was in a good groove to go at least six innings.
“That's where most of the frustration and disbelief is coming from,” Leiter said. “It just felt like it was a good one, and everything made a turn for the worst in that fifth inning where the balls in play were just falling, and some good at bats on their part, some good swings and a bunch of base hits -- a frustrating walk -- then obviously concluded by that that that play, which is a little scary.”
Frustrating was the word of the day, beginning with the Rangers’ defense committing multiple errors on back-to-back nights for the first time since May 6-7, 2024.
And each time the Rangers battled, the Pirates struck right back. When the fifth inning got away from Leiter -- including the tumble over the on-deck circle -- the offense added two more on a two-out, two-run single from Jake Burger in the eighth that tied the game.
The Pirates took a one-run lead on an infield dribbler by Jake Magnum in the top of the ninth before Oneil Cruz broke it open with a monster homer that skipped atop the right-field foul pole.
“It was kind of a weird game,” Schumaker said. “I thought Jack, the way he was throwing the baseball tonight, was going to go seven innings, one-run type of thing. That’s the way he was cruising with the low pitch count, fastball was playing at the top. Then the fifth inning happened, and it got out of hand a little bit there. There were some missed plays and a walk and some uncharacteristic stuff behind him. I’m really proud of the guys coming back to tie it again. It just kind of got away from us at the end.”