Slumping Rangers Drop Their Third Consecutive Series to Nationals
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The AL West leading Texas Rangers have had a rough start to their month of July. Texas lost three out of four to the defending champions and division rival Houston Astros to open the month, and followed that up with a series loss to the Boston Red Sox, the last-place team in the highly competitive AL East.
To close out the first-half of the MLB season, Texas looked to regain momentum into the All-Star break entering a three game inter-league tilt with the Washington Nationals, one of the worst teams in the National League.
The Rangers would continue the trend they set from the previous two series and win the series opener against Washington in convincing fashion.
The opening game was a battle between arms at the tail-end of both pitching rotations. Texas rookie Cody Bradford made his fifth start of the year and faced off against Washington’s Trevor Williams. Both offenses would shine early on in the opening frame.
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After a Marcus Semien leadoff walk, Corey Seager hit a double into the right-field gap to put two runners in scoring position. Both players would later score after an Adolis García groundout and a Jonah Heim RBI single that would put the Rangers up 2-0 at the end of the first inning.
Washington would later respond with a Joey Meneses home run that cleared the left field fence to make the score 2-1 at the end of the first inning.
After an offensive stalemate for the next three innings, the Rangers would add insurance runs in the top of the fifth with a Josh Jung two-RBI single that scored Nathaniel Lowe and García, giving Texas a 4-1 lead.
The Texas offense wouldn’t look back after the fifth inning, as they would later add two more runs in the seventh inning with two solo shots by Seager and García, and later scoring a seventh run off of an Ezequiel Duran sacrifice fly.
Bradford and the bullpen stymied the Washington offense, with Washington’s only other run coming off another Meneses home run.
Texas won the opening game at a score of 7-2, with the story being the dominance of the pitching game for the Rangers. Bradford earned his first win of the year and put up a solid stat-line of five hits, one earned run, one strikeout in five innings of work, while relievers Will Smith, Glenn Otto and Aroldis Chapman combined for seven strikeouts in the final four innings of the game.
While the series opener featured an offensive explosion from the Rangers, the second game saw the Washington bats start to produce at a high level.
Andrew Heaney got the start for the Rangers and faced off against Jake Irvin of the Washington Nationals. The Washington offense would quickly jump on Heaney, causing him to turn in one of his worst performances of the season.
The Nationals opened up the bottom of the first with two singles by CJ Abrams and Lane Thomas, with both later scoring after Jeimer Candelario ripped a three-run homer to put Washington up 3-0.
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Washington would then hit back-to-back homers as Joey Meneses hit a solo shot, his third of the series, to increase the lead to 4-0 at the end of the first inning. The following frame, Alex Call would hit a two-run homer to centerfield and Meneses continued his tear by hitting an RBI double, increasing his hit total to four in the series. The Nationals had a commanding lead at the end of two innings, with the score being 7-0.
In the third inning, Luis García would add another run following a little-league home-run, as his triple turned into an inside-the-park home run after Marcus Semien airmailed his throw to third, making the score 8-0 after the third frame.
While the Rangers would later tack on three runs after two Josh Jung home runs, the Nationals would hold on to even up the series with an 8-3 victory.
Andrew Heaney earned the loss, finishing with an abysmal line of eight hits, seven earned runs, four strikeouts in only three innings of work. Texas’ bullpen turned in a great performance, as Grant Anderson and Brock Burke only allowed four hits and zero earned runs in their combined five innings of relief.
For Washington, Jake Irvin got the win, posting a line of five hits, two earned runs and one strikeout, with the bullpen of Kyle Finnegan, Jordan Weems, and Amos Willingham shutting down the Ranger offense in their four innings of relief.
Despite eight hits by the Texas offense, their lack of ability to score with runners in scoring position hurt their chances to secure the series victory, as the team went 0-5 in those opportunities. The inability to drive in runners was a recurring theme, as it continued to plague the team in the deciding game of the series.
The rubber match featured another Washington blowout in a matchup between pitchers Patrick Corbin and Dane Dunning.
Both pitchers started off the game well, breaking the trend of numerous runs being scored in the first inning, as neither pitcher gave up a hit until the fourth inning after a Corey Seager single to right field. The game would remain scoreless until the bottom of the fifth inning, where Dominic Smith hit a solo shot to give Washington a 1-0 lead. Insurance runs would later be tacked on following a RBI single by Lane Thomas to make the score 2-0 at the end of the fifth frame.
Texas would claw back following an Adolis García RBI single off Corbin to make the score 2-1, but were unable to generate any offense off the veteran hurler for the remainder of his outing.
Dunning was eventually knocked out in the sixth inning following a Keibert Ruiz double and Dominic Smith HBP and was later replaced by Josh Sborz. Sborz was unable to get his 11th hold on the year, as an Alex Call two-RBI single and CJ Abrams RBI single scored all the runners he inherited from Dunning. Dunning would finish the game off earning the loss with a line of seven hits, four earned runs, and four strikeouts in his 5.2 innings of work.
Washington would eventually add insurance runs in the seventh with two solo shots by Stone Garrett And Joey Meneses that knocked out Sborz from the game and made the score 7-1 at the end of seven.
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Texas would later score a meaningless run in the eighth inning after another Adolis García RBI, but the game was already out of reach.
Washington clinched a series victory after winning the rubber match by a score of 7-2.
Patrick Corbin looked like his Diamondback-self, earning the win and posting a line of five hits allowed, one earned run, six strikeouts and only one walk in seven innings of work. After a rough outing in Cincinnati, Corbin turned in an excellent bounce-back performance to propel the Nationals to the series victory to bring Washington’s record to 36-54 to end the first-half of the season.
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The Rangers’ pitching again crumbled against the Washington offense, letting up a barrage of home runs to the home team and effectively lacking the run support the team needed to stay within striking distance of the final two games.
The Texas offense continued to generate hits off of Corbin, Jose Ferrer, and Hunter Harvey, totaling eight on the day. The team’s inability to drive those runners across the plate put the nail in the coffin, as Texas went 1-9 in opportunities with runners in scoring position compared to Washington’s 4-10, with Texas leaving eight men on base throughout the entire game.
The star player of the series was Joey Meneses from the Washington Nationals, who homered in every game of the series and drove in five of Washington’s 17 total runs in the three-game tilt.
With another blowout loss, Texas dropped its third consecutive series and falls to 52-39 to end the first-half of the 2023 season. Their slumping momentum continues through the month of July, with the team having a record of 3-6 in July, and a record of 3-7 in their last ten games played.
Entering the All-Star break, Texas sits with a small two-game cushion above the Houston Astros for first place in the AL West. The Rangers open up the second-half of the season with series against the Cleveland Guardians, Tampa Bay Rays and the Los Angeles Dodgers, all teams that made playoff appearances the year prior. In what will likely be a difficult finish to an abysmal July, Texas will have to pull through series victories if the team wants to make an appearance in October for the first time in seven years.
