Beltre will play in Game 162. It figures to be another emotional one
Only one game to go. Not that anyone is counting.
It will be a quick turnaround for the Texas Rangers and Seattle Mariners for their season finale. By MLB rule all games on the final day of the season must start at 3 p.m. EDT, and that’s not a significant burden for teams in the Eastern and Central time zones.
The one Mountain time zone team doesn’t have it too bad, either.
But noon is really early in the baseball world, and that’s when first pitch will be thrown in the Pacific time zone. The Rangers, not that any of them are counting, aren’t complaining.
Third baseman Adrian Beltre would have been fine playing two games Saturday if that meant ending the season a day early. He’d be OK starting at 10 a.m. Sunday.
It’s time to get this one over. Not that anyone is counting.
Here’s some Rangers Reaction from a 4-1 loss.
1. In case there was any doubt, the Rangers are still planning to let Beltre start at third base in the season finale. The script calls for Beltre to take a couple at-bats and then come out of the game to as little fanfare as possible, just as he would want it.
He didn’t want the Rangers to honor him the way they did last weekend in the final game at Globe Life Park, and all they did was take him out of the game so that the fans could give him a proper round of applause.
It was an emotional moment then, he later said, and Sunday figures to be emotional, too. His family is on hand, just in case this is it.
But there was no way Beltre wasn’t going to play, no matter what he did Saturday night (1 for 4 with an RBI double in the first). Players like Beltre honor Game 162 the best way they know how, by playing in it.
“He’s such a proud guy, and finishing the season means a lot to him,” said interim manager Don Wakamatsu, who managed Beltre in 2009 in Seattle. “Even at this stage in his career, everything he’s amassed, the pride in him is 162 no matter what. That’s part of the leadership he’s had, is playing hurt, playing every inning that he can, and playing the season out.”
2. How about a dose of feel-good from Game 161? Adrian Sampson provided it over his 6 2/3 innings.
The right-hander is from Redmond, Wash., 20 miles northeast of Safeco Field. He made his MLB debut with the Mariners, albeit on the road, before the flexor tendon below his elbow decided to stop working.
So, the Seattle-area kid finally made his first appearance in his hometown, with family and friends in attendance and cheering loudly with every strikeout.
(Brandon Mann, also from the area on sitting on his couch Thursday night, pitched a scoreless eighth to cheers from friends and family.)
“Did you guys here them?” Sampson said. “I couldn’t hear them.”
He was being sarcastic.
He didn’t make many mistakes in the game, but one was a throwing error to second base in the fifth inning as he tried to start an inning-ending double play. Instead, it led to the Mariners’ first run against him.
Sampson got some help, in the first inning from the pitcher-friendly environs that kept Nelson Cruz from a two-run homer and in the fifth as Carlos Tocci crashed into the left-field wall to turn a would-be two-run double into a game-tying sacrifice fly.
Tocci, who bruised his tailbone crashing into the center-field wall in April at Tampa Bay, stayed in the game despite being in fairly significant pain.
Sampson did, too, and he needed only 55 pitches to complete six innings.
The seventh didn’t go as planned, as Dee Gordon collected a two-out RBI triple to break a 1-1 tie, but in the end, Sampson had made another case to be in the Rangers’ rotation next season.
“That’s something I can’t control,” he said. “But as long as I can come out every day and prove to them that I can go deep into games and be efficient and keep the bullpen getting rest and making sure I put our team in a situation to win, I’ve been trying to do that all year.”
The Rangers could/should have won each of his four September starts. He has made pitches, shown good stuff, knows how to pitch and throws lots of strikes. The home run was a bit of an issue, but he’s hardly alone in a game that has gone homer crazy.
Sampson will get a serious look next spring. He’s earned it, and Saturday night was special for him in front off his family and friends.
“I’ll definitely remember this,” Sampson said. “This one is definitely for them. They’ve been supporting me all the way through, and for them to come out and just be there for me is something special.”
3. Ronald Guzman got a night off after a shaky Friday in which he failed to catch two pop-ups, booted a grounder and made a blunder on the bases.
“Humility is a wonderful teacher,” Wakamatsu said.
Nomar Mazara also had a significant gaffe, as he dropped a flyball that would have ended the second inning with only two runs allowed. Five more, all unearned, scored.
Mazara continues to deal with the effects of a bruised right thumb which will be evaluated again Tuesday, but he did not use the injury as an excuse.
“I just got a little comfortable with the ball, and the ball got by me,” he said.
But it’s been hurting him at the plate, where his average and power have declined. He is going to finish the season with essentially the same numbers he posted in his first two seasons.
Wakamatsu, though, said that the Rangers will evaluate Mazara on his progress before the injury, when he was tracking for career-highs in many categories.
“I think you look at the stretch where he was headed toward,” Wakamatsu said. “We’re going to take a positive out of that and say, ‘OK, we think he’s on the right track.’ I’ve seen him since he came up, being with other clubs. When I first saw him, I thought he was one of the best young hitters I’d ever seen.”
The key is the thumb. Beltre needed surgery after the 2015 season for his thumb injury, but Mazara believes that rest will do the trick for his injury.
He’s not a doctor, of course, and the health of his thumb will be something else the Rangers have to concern themselves with this off-season.