Fernando Tatis Jr.’s grand slam was only a sign of things to come for Texas Rangers
The No. 1 goal Friday for the Texas Rangers was to snap their five-game losing streak.
If they meant they had to win despite giving up a grand slam in a fifth straight game, fine.
No team in MLB history has given up five grannies in five straight. On Thursday night, the Rangers became the only team in history to do it in four straight.
(The Padres were the first to have grand slams in four consecutive games.)
It’s a tough piece of baseball history to swallow, and in the grand scheme of things, it’s not a significant chunk of history.
But ... ouch.
Four different San Diego Padres hitters homered with the bases loaded during their four-game home-and-home sweep of the Rangers. One was meaningless, yet created the greatest uproar, and the other three were differences in close games.
The Rangers were 10-10 and a playoff contender when the Padres showed up in Arlington Monday night, but four nights later they find themselves needing wins this weekend against the Mariners in Seattle to steady themselves ahead of the schedule taking a really difficult turn Monday.
“We’ve got to hold our head high, and we’ll come back again tomorrow,” manager Chris Woodward said Thursday. “We can’t stop fighting. We can’t quit.”
And the grand slams?
“We’re not talking about it,” Woodward said. “I heard it’s a footnote kind of thing.”
Each one, though, is worth a deeper look.
No. 1: Fernando Tatis Jr.
A grand slam Monday by the perhaps the game’s hottest hitter off of a journeyman mop-up reliever, Juan Nicasio, to make the score 14-3 shouldn’t have caused any commotion, but, of course, it did.
Tatis swung on a 3-0 pitch, which Woodward felt was a violation of baseball’s unwritten rules. When he answered a question about that, saying he didn’t like it, a significant amount of hell broke loose.
Woodward was cast as the old-school curmudgeon, which couldn’t be further from the truth, and Tatis was encouraged by fans, peers and Hall of Famers to swing away when ever he wants.
The unwritten rules need to go, media said (again), and anyone who still believes in the long-held player codes for respecting the game and opponents is a total idiot.
Never mind, of course, that some of Tatis’ own teammates believed he was in the wrong.
No. 2: Wil Myers
The Padres struck early Tuesday as Myers took Mike Minor deep on a 2-2 pitch with with two outs in the first inning. The Padres led 6-0 in the fourth before the Rangers posted four runs of their own.
All six Padres runs came off Minor, who lasted only 3 2/3 innings in his worst start of the season. He said he felt fine physically, which is good but also concerning going forward.
Minor was supposed to be one of three aces for the Rangers this season. Corey Kluber is hurt, and Minor has a 6.94 ERA. Only Lance Lynn has lived up to the preseason billing.
Minor thinks his issue is his changeup — which is the pitch Myers connected on — hasn’t been nearly as effective as it was last season
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No. 3: Manny Machado
The circumstances surrounding this one might have led to two losses.
The Rangers were down 2-1 in the eighth, when they used right-hander Jonathan Hernandez to hold the score there. He did, and Joey Gallo connected for a game-tying homer in the ninth.
Rather than send out Hernandez for a second inning after also pitching Tuesday, the Rangers went with closer Rafael Montero to get them to extra innings for the first time this season.
He did, and the Rangers scored once in the 10th and had their best reliever on the mound.
But he only recorded one out. Two walks followed a sacrifice bunt to load the bases for Machado. He worked a full count, knew a fastball was coming on 3-2, and he crushed it on Montero’s 42nd pitch.
Montero and Hernandez wouldn’t be available for the series finale.
No. 4: Eric Hosmer
The veteran first baseman connected off of Kyle Gibson to make history.
“I didn’t realize they had even hit one in three straight,” Gibson said. “That wasn’t on my mind. It’s one of those things, those big swings do you in in big innings. That’s not how you want to give up a big inning. It’s definitely frustrating when you don’t make a good pitch.”
Gibson had allowed only one other grand slam in his career, but the second turned a 2-1 Rangers lead into a 5-2 deficit. The Rangers managed to tie the game and take a 6-5 lead in the eighth inning before Jesse Chavez allowed two solo shots.
Nick Solak, though, tied it in the ninth, and the Rangers again went to extra innings.
But they didn’t have Montero or Hernandez. After the Rangers failed to score in their half of the 10th, the Padres did so immediately off of Luis Garcia. He had been in the Rangers’ alternate camp until Tuesday.
The back-to-back extra-inning losses are an indication to the Rangers that they are still fighting.
“The last two nights we didn’t give up,” Gibson said. “We played rally hard. You never want to base your season on moral victories, because that usually means you lost, but we battled back.”
This story was originally published August 21, 2020 at 5:02 PM.
