I have to say, after three straight losses against the Yankees, I wasn’t feeling good about the finale, or the state of the team, to be honest. It just felt like a slide backwards to the era we were in before 2010. Then the Yankees put up a five spot in the bottom of the 6th in this game, putting them up 5-4 in the game. I was feeling that I’d have to write another “I don’t write about the Yankees” and be really disgusted. However, it didn’t end that way.
The Rangers got out early 2-0 with three straight hits in the first – single, double, single. That Beltre single scored two, and put us UP on the Yankees. It stayed that way for awhile as Ivan Nova & Derek Holland traded zeroes, and the Rangers put up another two in the sixth via a strange order of plays (double, hit by pitch, single, sac bunt, intentional walk, ground out scoring a run).
But shortly after that, the wheels fell off Derek Holland. In the sixth, he couldn’t get much of anything done. Single, groundout, single, single, strikeout, home run, error (Olt). That brought Tanner Scheppers on, who promptly gave up a single, scoring the fifth run of the inning. Gave the Yankees the lead. Good thing I couldn’t SEE this game, as I hate watching Yankees home games when they’re on a run like that. They’re just as pompous as the Dallas Cowboys are in that regard.
However, in the three remaining innings, the Rangers scored in all of them to take back the lead, and the eventual win. They scored three in the seventh (Murphy and Gentry with the RBI’s), two in the eighth (sac fly and a single scoring those), and one final run in the 9th (RBI single). So we beat up on the Yankees bullpen fairly well. Their starter (Ivan Nova) was OK, but not great. Unlike Holland, who had a big inning meltdown, Nova had a few with small numbers, so his was a more consistent negative performance, I suppose.
Offensively, we didn’t have a ton of power. Of the sixteen hits we had, six of them were doubles, and the other ten were all singles. We also were granted six walks by the Yankees, so there was a lot going on in the baselines in this one. :) With that much, you feel like we should have had more than 10 runs. The Rangers left 10 men on base, although if you look at the individual numbers for LOB, the number was 24.
Still, however you write it, beating the Yankees is always a good thing. Even if it’s just to salvage the last game, avoiding a four game sweep. Which would have been VERY ugly.