After losing to Detroit by a score of 8-4 on Saturday, the Rangers turned around and beat Detroit by the same score on Sunday afternoon. Although it didn’t start out that way.
Detroit scored three runs in the first inning due to Colby Lewis seemingly not being able to pitch to anyone. He was doing a new impression. Was a combination of Mark Clark and Joe Roa. It started off poorly, with a leadoff home run to Austin Jackson. What followed was a single, double, walk, strikeout, line out, single, and a groundout. Not even in the same ballpark as the word “dominating”. While I don’t have a pitch count by inning, given how many batters got up, it had to be high. The Tigers also tacked on an additional run in the top of the second on a single by Ramon Santiago. However, that was the end of their scoring. At that point, the Tigers had four runs on seven hits, one walk, and two strikeouts. For the other seven innings, they had a total of no runs, one more hit, and one more walk. That was it.
Too bad Lewis couldn’t figure that out from the start. In all, Colby’s line wasn’t too horrific. 6.1 innings, seven hits, two walks, four earned runs. Not great mind, you, but given the feeling after the second inning, it wasn’t too bad at all. Colby did end up with 10 strikeouts, and actually leads the American League in strikeouts.
Only Tim Lincecum over in the NL has more K’s than Colby does right now. Wow.
Offensively, we were led by a home run by David Murphy in the first inning. Michael Young also had a double, and there were nine singles scattered through the lineup. Michael Young was the big story though – driving in five of the eight runs the Rangers scored.
Justin Smoak still doesn’t have a hit, but he did walk and score a run. In fact, only Smoak & Elvis Andrus went hitless this game.
Our catching situation is a bit of a fiasco. I wonder when something will happen with that.