The Rangers fell to 1-3 last night after a 4-3 loss in the opener of a 4-game series against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. It was a close game, but much like the other two losses walks by Derek Holland early on and walks by Sam Dyson late led to their defeat. It just is not a good start right now, but we are still just 4 games into a 162 game campaign. I think what you are seeing is the team trying to get adjusted to the rigors of the regular season. This is not Spring Training any more. This team still has the makeup to be really good, but they just have gotten off to a slow start.

There were bright spots in this game. Derek Holland was making his first start and through 4 innings looked outstanding. He was especially great in the 4th inning when he faced Mike Trout and had a 9-pitch battle and ended up getting him swinging and then finished the inning with a strikeout of C.J. Cron. The problem was that did not continue into the 5th as he walked 2 of the first 3 hitters and they both came around to score to give the Angels the lead. It looked like he was fatigued in that inning and that caused his control to suffer. Tom Wilhelmsen was a lot better in his second appearance than he was in his first. He did allow two batters to reach, but got Geovanny Soto to line out to 3rd baseman Adrian Beltre to end the inning with no runs allowed. Robinson Chirinos and Elvis Andrus keep getting key hits at the bottom of the order. Tonight it was Chirinos getting a solo home run to lead off the 3rd inning and it was Andrus getting a single to tie the game in the 7th inning. Both have came through at big times early on this season.

The offense continues to struggle with runners in scoring position(RISP) and continues to struggle with men on base. It just feels like we are seeing a repeat of what happened in April last season, but with one good game a lot of that could change. I am not going to say for certain that is what is happening until we have been playing for at least a couple of weeks and have more numbers to look at. I do know that they are making scoring runs look a lot more difficult than a lineup with this amount of talent should be. Anytime they score a run it feels like a massive chore just to get that run across the plate. I am ready for them to really break out and start driving in runs at a more consistent clip.

The final bright spot is that despite the loss the bullpen was a lot better tonight. They were handed a 3-2 score in the bottom of the 6th and a combination of Wilhelmsen, Keone Kela, Sam Dyson, and Andrew Faulkner made it stand. It was not until Albert Pujols lined one in the gap to win it in the 9th did the Angels finally push ahead and win the game. It was a good effort from the pen. The biggest moment may have been when Dyson faced the Angels in the 8th with the bases loaded and nobody out. They had led off the inning with a single off of Keone Kela and then Dyson was brought in and Pujols and Cron got back-to-back singles off of him to load the bases. Instead of the Angels blowing the game open right there, Dyson buckled down and struck out Kole Calhoun in an intense battle. Then he faced Andrelton Simmons and got a perfect 5-4-3 double play ball to preserve the tie and give the Rangers a chance to win it in the 9th. The mistake that was made was bringing him back for the 9th. Those were a lot of high stress pitches thrown by Dyson in the 8th and then he rested and came back for the 9th and was not nearly as sharp. His control was not where it needed to be. He started the first two hitters out with 2-0 counts and got the first hitter to ground out, then gave up a single to Johnny Giavotella, and then walked Yunel Escobar. That got the rally started and then Pujols eventually finished it off against closer Shawn Tolleson. So overall Derek Holland was good, the bottom of the order produced, and the bullpen was much better than it had been against the Mariners. It just did not lead to a win, but it is something that they can build on.

Other Game Notes

• This has been a consistent theme thus far, but the defense once again was very good. Adrian Beltre made a couple of great defensive plays. He snared a smash hit of a ground ball of the bat of Johnny Giavotella in the 3rd inning and he had the double play grounder in the 8th inning. Ian Desmond also made a couple of good reads in the outfield. He cut off a ground ball and made an accurate throw to the cutoff man and was able to hold Kole Calhoun at 3rd in the 6th inning. That is one thing I am noticing is that the team is not just making the difficult plays, but they are also making the easy play. They are not losing focus and making silly errors in the field. If they continue to play like this the amount of unearned runs will be a lot lower than it was last season.
• I mentioned this earlier, but this team just really struggles when they get a man on base. I made note of this in Tuesday’s recap when they went 1-15 after getting the leadoff man on base. Last night after they got a man on base the team went 1-10 with two sac flies to score two of the runs. That is not good enough to win games in this division. It may have on Opening Day, but for the most part it will not win games. That has to improve soon for them to turn this around.
• The good thing though is that the starters have been good so far this season. Last night marked the first game that a starter did not go 6 innings. Holland did give up only 3 runs in his 5 innings of work. Derek Holland in my opinion is the key to this staff. If he can stay healthy and pitch well in that #4 spot then this rotation goes from good to great when Yu Darvish gets back hopefully next month. He showed better velocity last night than he had at any time in Arizona, which was a concern coming into last night. It was definitely a start that he can build off of. One thing fans need to remember is to be patient with him. He has not pitched a full season since 2013. There will be some ups and downs with him throughout this season. The most important thing is getting him through the season healthy.
• The team drops to 1-3 and the Angels get their first of the season. Too early to panic, but not to early for the team to start working on some things to give them a better chance to win tonight.

Preview of Tonight’s Game

9:05 p.m. at Angels Stadium of Anaheim, A.J. Griffin against Matt Shoemaker

A.J. Griffin was officially announced as the number 5 starter yesterday and will be making his first start for the Rangers tonight. He was in the competition for the number 5 spot all Spring with Jeremy Guthrie, Chi Chi Gonzalez, Nick Martinez, and Cesar Ramos. He was thought to be a long shot. After having not pitched the last two seasons the team was not counting on him to even be ready. He went out there and pitched in the games he was assigned to and pitched well enough to give himself a spot on this team. It is up to him to see if he can keep that spot even when Yu Darvish comes back. Griffin, who prior to this season pitched for the Oakland A’s, will be making his first start since September 24th, 2013. He features a good fastball, curveball, and changeup. I am sure there will be nerves coming into this game after having not pitched in a big league game in so long. He will need to calm his nerves and just throw. I will be really interested to see how he does tonight. I saw him in Spring Training in the game in San Antonio and he looked great early on, but then wore down as the game got to the 5th. I don’t anticipate a long outing from him. If the Rangers can get 5 innings from in and 3 runs or fewer that would be a successful first start in my mind.

Matt Shoemaker goes for the Angels. He is 4-0 in his career against the Rangers with a 2.39 ERA. He owns the second most wins without a loss against the Rangers. One of two things will happen tonight, either he is finally due for a loss against the Rangers or he will pitch very well again and add to that win column for himself and/or the win column for the team.

Player to Watch: I did not make a pick for last night’s game. I missed on Desmond on Wednesday afternoon though as he continues to struggle to adjust to American League pitching early on. I am 0-2 so far. Lets see if I can do better tonight. My pick is Adrian Beltre. Beltre had a good game on Wednesday, but followed that up with a 0-4 last night. He has hit well in his career against Matt Shoemaker. He has a .364 career average in 11 career at-bats against Shoemaker. I think he is due for a big night. We will see if I can get on the board with my picks so far.

Hopefully the Rangers can stop the losing streak of 3 tonight and stop Matt Shoemakers’ win streak against them as well. Go Rangers!!!!!