Well, I never thought the Rangers were going to sweep the Tigers. So a loss or two was inevitable. While one never wants their team to lose, it wasn’t terribly ugly, either. So that’s something positive in the loss.
Doug Fister was the story here. He pitched quite well. We picked up a run in the first, but that was it off of Fister until the Rangers got a second run in the 8th inning. Fister looked quite good. 7.1IP, 3K, 2ER, 102 pitches. Great outing for him. He deserved the win. We never got anything totally sustained going on. The hits that the Rangers got in the first were all bloops or seeing eye hits. Nothing hard hit at all. The one we got in the first was in retrospect, a surprise.
Colby Lewis gave up more home runs than anyone this season, and ALCS Game 3 was no surprise. Gave up two of them. The first tied the game early on, and the other was the fourth run. Uehara, who followed Lewis gave up a solo home run of his own. Our pitching wasn’t horrendous, just “meh”. Problem is “meh” doesn’t get you anywhere in the playoffs. No time for “meh” now. Darren Oliver had a good inning, and Tateyama didn’t give anything up run wise, just a single. But the damage was done by that point.
Torrealba played for the first time in the series, and went 3-3. Overall the Rangers had just eight hits. Two doubles, and six singles. Not much going on, but that’s because it was down to Fister.
Lewis didn’t look like the guy from last year’s playoffs at all. But again. “meh”.
Game 4 is in a couple of hours from now, hopefully we have a better response against the Tigers than last night.