Photo Courtesy: Douglas Hoyt
By Alex Al-Kazzaz
After getting a 4-0 win against Oakland Athletics and the Houston Astros losing to the Angels on Friday night, the Rangers found themselves back to 1.5 games behind the first place position in the A.L. West standings. To be just half a game behind, the Rangers needed to win this game, and the Astros needed to lose. Although the Astros lost again, it didn’t go well for the Rangers, as they fell to A’s 5-3.
Yovani Gallardo took the mound for the Rangers in Saturday’s game. The night started out okay for him but in the fifth inning, it just went completely downhill for him as he surrendered five runs in the inning. Gallardo was pulled out of the game after pitching just 4.1 innings. He finished his night allowing seven hits, surrendering five runs, and striking out only three batters. On this night, Gallardo’s winning streak came to an end.
The Rangers bullpen did a good job in not allowing anymore runs, and at the bottom of the ninth inning, the Rangers offense sparked a comeback by scoring two runs, but ultimately fell short. The Rangers offense finished the night with a total of nine hits, including six doubles, and were struck out a total of nine times. Shin-Soo Choo is currently on a 13-game home hit streak, and Elvis Andrus had three consecutive doubles in this game after a terrible 0 for 22 slump.
Game 3 of the series will be today at 2:05 pm CT. Chi-Chi Gonzalez will be on the mound for the Rangers as they’ll look to win the series and build up momentum for the next series at home against the Houston Astros. Within the next few games, the Rangers could possibly climb to the first place position in the A.L. West. In order to do that, they’ll have to win Game 3 to avoid a third consecutive series without a series win and do their best to try to sweep the Astros.
