Texas is back at .500 with the victory
The Texas Rangers scored two runs while the Chicago White Sox scored one run.
A rather uneventful game for you and your dad to enjoy today. The Rangers again whiffed with runners in scoring position in all seven of their chances while also leaving eleven more runners on base, but they were able to scratch out a couple of runs which proved enough as the pitching continued to flourish.
The starter doing the flourishing today was former No. 3 overall pick Kumar Rocker, back up in the big leagues in place of the injured Tyler Mahle. It hasn’t been an easy time transitioning to the Major Leagues for Rocker so far this season but he shrugged off the growing pains today and tossed five scoreless innings on 82 pitches.
Rocker allowed four hits but most importantly, he walked just one batter and struck out six. Though the bullpen was worked hard in this series, they were up to the task in the finale with four innings of one-run relief. Of particular note was Cole Winn — another former first-round arm for Texas — tossing 1 2⁄3 scoreless innings to run his untouched upon streak to 11 2⁄3 innings.
Winning three games with a margin of +4 won’t do much for the run differential but a sweep is a sweep and with the three wins over the White Sox, the Rangers have crawled their way back to .500.
Player of the Game: It seems like Ezequiel Duran hasn’t contributed much to the big league squad in almost two calendar years now but today Duran doubled in Texas’ first run, doubled again, and also drew a walk. By doing so, Duran raised his OPS from .306 entering the day to .447.
Up Next: The Rangers have another Monday off tomorrow before opening a series against Kansas City on Tuesday. RHP Jack Leiter is expected to start the opener for Texas opposite RHP Seth Lugo for the Royals.
Tuesday’s first pitch from The Shed is scheduled for 7:05 pm CT and will be carried on the Rangers Sports Network.