Texas Rangers look to bounce back against Oakland
While the first series didn’t go exactly the way the Texas Rangers had hoped, their chances look good with the Oakland Athletics coming to town.
The 2017 season hasn’t started all that well for the Texas Rangers. After entering the season as one of the favorites to win the AL West, they stumbled out of the gate and lost three to Cleveland. Costly walks by staff and critical strikeouts by the lineup made it a rough opening series. But now the Oakland Athletics travel to Globe Life Park for a three game set and a fresh start.
Friday — Alcantara (RHP, 0-0) at Griffin (RHP, 0-0) 7:05 PM
Rangers starter A.J. Griffin will make his 2017 debut Friday evening against Raul Alcantara, who will also make his first start for Oakland. Griffin returns from a 7-4 record last season and a 5.07 earned run average. Friday’s game marks the first time Griffin will ever face his former team in regular season play.
Last season, Griffin was a better pitcher at Globe Life Park than he was on the road. In 10 starts at home, he went 5-2 with a 4.89 earned run average. Although he allowed a slightly higher home batting average, opposing hitters didn’t have quite the power against him in Arlington that they did in other baseball towns. They slugged just .490 with 12 home runs.
Opposing him, Alcantara still qualifies as a rookie. With just 22 1/3 big league innings, a win and three losses to his name, he’ll face a Texas Rangers team that he’s had some success against. Friday marks his third start against them, despite starting just five games all last season.
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In Alcantara’s first start against Texas, he went 5 2/3 innings and surrendered just two runs on five hits. He struck out three Rangers hitters and ended the game with 85 pitches. The lone blemish off him was a Carlos Gomez home run in the sixth inning for the only two runs he allowed. That game netted him his first and only MLB win thus far.
His second game against the Rangers didn’t go nearly as well. Elvis Andrus took him deep twice with a pair of two-run homers while his offense did nothing for him. Although that was nice for Rangers fans to see, it likely won’t turn out that way again.
Saturday — Graveman (RHP, 1-0, 3.00) at Darvish (RHP, 0-0, 5.00) 7:05 PM
Saturday’s game showcases pitchers with games under their belt for each team in the Athletics’ Kendall Graveman and Texas’ Yu Darvish. Darvish took the ball for the Rangers on Opening Night and pitched well enough to get the team the win. However, Cleveland inched their way back into the ballgame late and ultimately took out the Texas bullpen to win.
In the early part of his career, Darvish struggled with Oakland. They know how to work the counts against him and force him to throw the pitches he doesn’t want to. That’s why he has just a 3-9 record against them in his lifetime. His 4.64 career earned run average against the A’s is higher than all but one other MLB team.
But Darvish turned a bit of a corner in 2016. Last season he held Oakland to a 3.96 earned run average, winning two of his four starts against them. While the five home runs they belted against him still led all teams against Darvish last season, he certainly made it clear that he can have some success against them.
Like Darvish, Graveman started the season opener for Oakland. However, the A’s were able to hang on and earn him the victory after he pitched six innings of six hit ball, surrendering just two runs.
Last season, Graveman faced Texas twice earning a loss and a no-decision that the Athletics ultimately lost. Nomar Mazara, Elvis Andrus and Carlos Gomez played him well last season and will surely be in Saturday’s lineup in order to continue that trend.
Sunday — Manaea (LHP, 0-0, 6.00) at Perez (LHP, 0-1, 4.50) 2:05 PM
Sunday’s matinee will feature a showdown between Sean Manaea for Oakland and Martin Perez for the Rangers. Both young lefties will try to bounce back from rough outings earlier in the week and try to earn their first win of the season.
Manaea had a fantastic rookie season last year, going 7-9 with a 3.86 earned run average in 144 2/3 innings. He was one of the few bright spots on an Athletics team that finished 69-93 last season. They expect him to anchor the staff in 2017.
He faced the Rangers four times last season, winning once, losing once and earning no-decisions twice. The most alarming numbers he put up against Texas were his ratio of 11 strikeouts per walk and his 8.4 strikeouts per nine innings. He made good work of a Rangers team that still got a few good shots off of him.
Manaea won his first game against them in May of 2016 with a 6 2/3 inning, four hit performance. He went on to earn his first MLB win in that game and surrendered just one lone run in the ballgame at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. He faced them well two other times in the middle of the season before Texas had a five run breakout against him in August in Arlington.
Shin-Soo Choo and Jonathan Lucroy each hit Manaea well last season and managed home runs off of him. The jet stream might keep that from happening as easily on Sunday with the warmer daytime air.
Perez had a really good season of his own last year and won two of his four starts against the A’s with a 4.00 ERA against them. His best game against the A’s came in his final start against them on August 15. Perez went seven innings, allowing just one earned run, two total, with five hits and a walk with six strikeouts. The fact that he did it on 91 pitches made it one of his most efficient outings of the year.
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All three games will be televised on Fox Sports Southwest in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. The radio broadcast of the games can be heard on 105.3 FM, The Fan in Dallas/Fort Worth in English and KFLC 1270 in Spanish.