After facing freshly ex-Met Verlander in Houston, the Angels had to go up against fellow freshly ex-Met Scherzer in Arlington, Texas.
In the first inning the first 3 Halo batters struck out, including a pitch timer violation on Drury, resulting in a technical K.
Patrick Sandoval also pitched a scoreless 1st inning with 3 strikeouts but it was a tad less smooth. Fortunately, he got out of a bases loaded jam unscathed.
In the 2nd, Moose singled and Renfroe walked but no scoring happened. The Rangers half was more successful. After a walk and single to start the inning, followed by a sac bunt (huh, small ball is still alive), Semien singled to center resulting in 2 runs with the assistance of a Moniak bobble in center.
The Angels offense did nothing once again in the 3rd, and the Rangers once again did something. Sandy started the inning with a walk, single, and walk and needed to get out of a bases loaded jam once again, but this time with no outs. Grossman went down on strikes, but J.P. Martinez was able to hit a sac fly to score one run. Another single left the bases loaded once again, this time with 2 outs, but Semien worked a walk to bring in yet another run. That would do it for Sandy after 2.2 innings, but his book was left wide open for Griffin Canning to add a 5th run via a wild pitch. After an intentional walk to Seager, Lowe struck out to end the inning. But now it was a deep hole, 5-0 Texas after 3.
Both teams went scoreless in the middle 2 innings and the Angels added the 6th inning to that as well. However, the Rangers got back on the board when Seager led off with a double, the Garver had a double of his own with 2 outs to make the score 6-0 after 6 innings.
The Angels went down in order in the 7th, but like a broken record, the Rangers did not. Canning’s last hurrah in this game looked like a double, single, and pop out, followed by a backbreaking 3 run homer by Semien.
Aaron Loup come on in “relief” and started with a line out to center, but then a Lowe single set the table for Adolis Garcia to hit a homer of his own, this one of the 2-run variety. 11-0 Texas.
Texas tacked on another run in the 8th to make the score 12-0, which turned out to be the final score.
