Rangers 4, Red Sox 1
Rangers 4, Red Sox 1
- And Texas is back to .500. Oh, and a four-way tie for first.
- And hey there, Jack Leiter. That’s more along the lines of what we have been hoping for.
- In easily his best major league performance, Leiter went five innings, allowed five hits, walked one, struck out four and give up one run. Leiter was pulled at 82 pitches, and so maybe he would have gone another inning if it weren’t his first start of the season.
- Leiter hit the ground running with a dominant first that featured a weak roller and a pair of strikeouts for an easy 1-2-3. His only difficult inning was the fourth, when, with one out, he gave up a weakly hit single followed by a couple of hard hit singles, which is how the one run scored. He was able to induce a GIDP from Connor Wong to get out of the inning, though.
- Leiter threw five pitches, with his fastball and sinker being used most often, his changeup being thrown mostly to lefties, the slider being used exclusively against righties, and the curveball spotted in occasionally as well. He generated 12 swings and misses on the 82 pitches, half of which came on his fastball.
- It is just one outing, but it is one outing on the heels of a strong spring that saw Leiter get a lot off run as potentially taking a big step forward. Leiter looked like a legitimate quality major league start yesterday, and that’s something I don’t think we’ve ever been able to say before.
- The Rangers used five relievers to get through the last four innings, and notably, Bruce Bochy went back to Luke Jackson for the ninth. After throwing 17 sliders against just four fastballs the day before, LuJack went more fastball heavy this time, throwing it six times, compared to two sliders and one curveball in a 1-2-3 inning.
- Offensively, the star of the show was Jonah Heim. Heim’s bad 2024 season was followed by a bad spring training, and he was on the bench Opening Day. Getting the start in Game 2, Heim responded with a pair of home runs, the second two home run day he’s had in his career.
- The other 2024 regular who sat on Opening Day, Leody Taveras, also had a solid day, going 1 for 2 with a stolen base and a walk. The broadcast talked about Leody’s demeanor being different in 2025, about him seeming to be in a more positive place and coming across as more confident. A bounceback year from Leody would be a very good thing.
- Aside from the Heimdingers, the Rangers’ scoring came in the sixth, when Jake Burger doubled home Joc Pederson and then scored on a Josh Jung single. The inning could have been even bigger, but Wyatt Langford was thrown out going from first to third on Pederson’s single on a play that Bochy tried to challenge, but which the umpires said he waited to long to call for the challenge on.
- Jack Leiter hit 99.0 mph with his fastball. Shawn Armstrong topped out at 95.5 mph with his sinker. Marc Church maxed out at 98.5 mph. Hoby Milner’s fastball reached 89.0 mph. Jacob Webb’s fastball touched 94.9 mph. Luke Jackson hit 95.3 mph with his fastball.
- Jake Burger had a 109.1 mph double. Jonah Heim’s home runs were 107.4 mph and 98.7 mph. Marcus Semien hit into a double play at 105.0 mph. Wyatt Langford had a 103.2 mph double play, a 102.7 mph ground out, and a 100.1 mph single. Corey Seager had a 102.3 mph fly out and a 100.8 mph single. Joc Pederson had a 102.1 mph ground out. Josh Jung had a 100.7 mph line out.
- This was a nice win.