Rangers Reaction: Yes, it's incredibly early, but the bullpen has been a bright spot
Though manager Jeff Banister and staff ace Cole Hamels were pretty confident Thursday that the Texas Rangers weren't going to go 0-162, some fans out there might not have been so sure.
Good news: Banister and Hamels were right.
The Rangers have a 1-1 record for the sixth time in the past seven seasons after beating the Houston Astros on Friday. The Rangers were 0-3 to start last season, with two of the losses the result of Sam Dyson blowing up.
He lost the opener and blew the first of too many save chances in Game 3.
Through two games this season, thought it's very early, what a difference a year makes.
Here's some Rangers Reaction from a 5-1 victory.
1. The Rangers bullpen has logged 7 1/3 innings over the first two games and has allowed one run. They tossed four scoreless innings behind Doug Fister, one of the three (or more) question marks in the rotation, and looked good doing it.
Even Banister, though, was trying to tap the brakes on the early successes. He said that he's cautiously optimistic that the Rangers have struck on something, with pitchers who can log multiple innings and others who have some actual experience to fall back on when times are tough.
Chris Martin and Kevin Jepsen have fired zeroes in their back-to-back appearances to open the season, and Alex Claudio picked up Friday where he left off in 2017.
The group has power arms from each side. Claudio provides the biggest challenge, with his looping pitches and funky delivery and arm angles. Keone Kela has the stuff to be an established closer.
Jepsen, Jesse Chavez and Jake Diekman, who has yet to pitch, provide the experience. Tim Lincecum and Tony Barnette will come off the disabled list in time. Bartolo Colon would be an interesting bullpen addition.
Those decisions are pending, starting with Colon, then Barnette and then Lincecum. The Rangers don't have enough spots for all of them.
If the bullpen keeps pumping like it has in Games 1 and 2, some difficult decision will become even more difficult to make.
2. Two games into the season, and Rangers fans are ready to stage a walkout over instant replay.
But lost in the angst over the Nomar Mazara play in the sixth inning Friday night is that replay two batters later might have saved their victory.
Jose Altuve's led off with a flyball to right field. The lights might have been a factory in Mazara misplaying the ball, but what looked to be an easy out turned into a single as second-base umpire Gabe Morales said that Mazara trapped the ball.
Manager Jeff Banister challenged the ruling and, despite replays that appeared to show the ball hit Mazara's glove first and not the outfield grass, the call stood.
"I caught it 100 percent," Mazara said afterward.
But that fact that it was misplayed put the decision in the umpires' hands, and that's not always a good thing.
Speaking of misplayed, how about the throw Rounged Odor uncorked two batters later? Odor usually gets an A for effort, but his decision-making is often dicey. When he spun and chucked the ball into the front of the Rangers' dugout nowhere near first base, Morales sent Altuve home to score.
Review overturned that decision, as Altuve hadn't reached second base at the time of the throw and the two bases he should have been awarded were second and third. So, instead of it being a 3-2 games, the Rangers held onto their 3-1 edge.
After a walk to load the bases, Martin struck out Evan Gattis and Claudio got pinch hitter J.D. Davis for the biggest out of the game.
If the replay ump had ruled differently on the Mazara-Altuve play, Martin tosses a 1-2-3 innings. But if the same ump hadn't overturned the decision to send Altuve home, the game might have turned out differently.
3. Joey Gallo and Shin-Soo Choo played a game of How Close Can You Miss A Homer in the seventh and eighth inning, and Choo somehow upstaged his fellow left-handed hitter.
Gallo creamed a Joe Smith frisbee off the center-field wall, almost near the top. The exit velocity on the seventh-inning RBI double was 116 mph, and somehow the wall didn't topple over.
It served as the key hit in a game in which the Astros didn't use four outfielders against Gallo. Dallas Keuchel is a groundball pitcher, and the Astros didn't want to give Gallo the chance to slap one through the left side of the infield.
An inning later, Choo dropped an opposite-field drive off the top of the left-field wall. It was so close to being a homer that the umpires reviewed the play, but, alas, it did hit the top of the wall and not the netting that stretches from the wall to the stands.
Mazara didn't miss his second-inning homer off Keuchel, a drive to center field that left the bat at 111 mph. And that hit, of all Rangers hits, might end up being the most telling of the season.
Mazara is a left-handed hitter. Keuchel is a left-handed pitchers. Mazara had one homer against lefties last season and one in 2016 (that one just happened to be the longest homer in Globe Life history).
He needs hit lefties better and knows it. He also believes wholeheartedly that he can hit lefties. The homer reinforces that for him.
"I'm not where I want to be right now," Mazara said. "But that should tell me I can do it."
4. For those who weren't regular readers of the spring-training staple, the Surprise Five, it occasionally included links to other Star-Telegram Rangers stories and advice to follow/like my Facebook page.
It will happen occasionally in Rangers Reaction, too.
The links:
You, try to bunt. You try to bunt.
This story was originally published March 31, 2018 at 12:04 AM with the headline "Rangers Reaction: Yes, it's incredibly early, but the bullpen has been a bright spot."