First 200-strikeout season doesn’t put damper on Gallo’s second straight 40-homer season
Only five Texas Rangers games to go. Not that anyone is counting.
Here’s something to count: How many games can the Rangers this season?
Well, they could win out and finish with 71. They could lose out and finish with 66.
The latter seems more likely than the former.
A 70-win season doesn’t appear to be in the works, either.
But the wild card in all of this is baseball. Anything can happen, as the Rangers’ two middle infielder can attest.
Here’s some Rangers Reaction from a 4-1 loss to the Los Angeles Angels in which history and hilarity were made.
1. Joey Gallo did two significant things in Rangers history.
He became the fourth player in club history, though the first without the suspicion of performance-enhancing drugs, to hit 40 home runs in back-to-back seasons. He joined Juan Gonzalez (Mitchell Report), Rafael Palmeiro (positive test) and Alex Rodriguez (positive test).
Gallo did so with a towering 413-foot blast to center field on the first pitch of the third inning. He has five games left to match his total of 41 from last season or to surpass it.
The only left-handed hitters in MLB history to post multiple 40-homer seasons in their age-24 seasons or younger are Gallo, Ken Griffey Jr. and Eddie Matthews. Right-handed hitters Willie Mays and Albert Pujols did it, too.
“When you get to 39, it lingers a little bit, so I’m glad I got it over pretty quick,” said Gallo, who hit No. 39 on Sunday. “It’s pretty special. I’m not going to lie. It is. It means a lot. I’m a home-run hitter, so to hit home runs and hit 40 of them in back-to-back years is pretty special for me personally.”
That was the good. The not-so-good, and the not-so-surprising, was that he became the first player in club history to strike out 200 times in a season. He struck out four times Monday and in his second at-bat Tuesday to join the 200-K club.
Gallo doesn’t try to strike out. He’s working to cut them down, and many believe he is talented enough to do so. Interim manager Don Wakamatsu said that Gallo doesn’t yet know how good he can be.
The stigma of 200 strikeouts doesn’t sting like it once did, either, in today’s homer-fueled game.
“If guys make their pitches, that’s how it goes,” Gallo said. “The way I get pitched to, they don’t want me to hit the ball. That’s why I get 3-2 off-speed and 3-0 changeups. They don’t want me to put the ball in play.”
Wakamatsu measures Gallo in different ways, namely his .828 OPS and his ability to play solid defense at multiple positions.
“We’d love for him to have every facet of it,” Wakamatsu said. “Here’s a guy that can defend, can cover some ground, versatility. Minus 40 points or 50 points on average, he’s got a chance to have 100 RBIs. He’s got 40 home runs. He plays good defense. Outside of that one average, does it put him in some of the elite categories as he matures a bit? That’s what we’re hoping.”
2. Elvis Andrus and Rougned Odor might have trouble living that one down.
Andrus, the Rangers’ shortstop, went to his left in the sixth inning and dived for and gloved a grounder. Odor, the second baseman, was shifted up the middle and dived for it, too.
Right into Andrus.
“The reason is he was playing toward the middle, and usually when he plays like that he usually gets those ground balls. But the ball hit on the right side of the mound and kicked it to my side. If it doesn’t hit that side of the mound, I probably let him catch it.”
It was part of the Angels’ rally from a one-run deficit that included a broken-bat RBI single, another Jurickson Profar throwing error, Eddie Butler walking in a run and a sacrifice fly.
(Remember those times when Rangers Reaction predicted Butler would be in the Rangers’ rotation in 2019? Scratch that.)
The disastrous inning spoiled an otherwise nice start by Yovani Gallardo, who had a two-hit shutout through five inning. Martin Perez, who is starting Friday, was the first man out of the bullpen, and he issued the broken-bat hit to Shohei Ohtani.
The error and collision of middle infielders also occurred on Perez’s watch.
For those who missed it, don’t worry. It’ll be replayed again and again soon.
“It’s OK,” Andrus said. “He’s healthy. I’m healthy. It wasn’t too bad.
“It’s not a blooper. It is? [Expletive deleted].”
3. What is Mike Minor’s biggest takeaway from this season, his first as an MLB starter since 2014? Reassurance.
The left-hander is convinced that he is all the way back from the shoulder injury that derailed his career and threatened to end it. He went wire to wire in the rotation, albeit with extra rest between starts that he didn’t want, and is still standing even though the Rangers won’t allow him to start again until 2019.
“I’m already excited for next year,” he said. “I do have the confidence to go into next year, and I want to be one of those top guys.”
He was on the first of that in 2013 with the Atlanta Braves, but his shoulder started bugging him. It didn’t really stop until 2017, when he was a reliever for the Kansas City Royals.
All is well now (he said he could make another start this season), and he finished pitching the way he wanted to after opening the season tentatively instead of imposing himself and forcing hitters to hit his pitches.
Wakamatsu has been with Minor the past three seasons and has seen Minor go from a two-pitch reliever (fastball, hard slider) to a four-pitch pitcher (fastball, slider, curveball, changeup).
“What I’ve seen as a starter is he has four pitches that are legitimate,” Wakamatsu said. “He’s learned to be a little more efficient with his pitches. With a solid winter under his belt, to come back with that feeling is going to be exciting to see.”
This story was originally published September 26, 2018 at 1:27 AM.