Texas Rangers need more atop lineup. Isiah Kiner-Falefa may have solved woes Tuesday
Shohei Ohtani is immensely talented, probably more so than any other player in baseball.
He hits balls 450-plus feet, can hit .300, runs like a deer and can be nasty on the mound.
The pitching thing, though, comes and goes.
Too often in his MLB career with the Los Angeles Angels he’s been injured. When he’s been healthy, he’s had games where he’s been darn near unhittable and then games where he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.
Ohtani’s start Tuesday against the Texas Rangers featured a dose of both.
He allowed only one hit in four innings, working on a limited pitch count in his first start after dealing with a blister, but he walked six and hit another batter. Yet, he struck out seven to keep the Rangers off the scoreboard.
That’s taking effectively wild to the extreme.
The Rangers had five more innings to do something once Ohtani left.
They did, just not enough.
Here’s some Rangers Reaction from a 6-2 loss.
A Kiner-Falefa breakthrough?
An offense typically can’t get going when its leadoff hitter is in an 0-for-19 skid, and that was the case for the Rangers and the hitter atop their lineup, Isiah Kiner-Falefa.
He snapped the drought in the seventh with a one-out triple, and he scored as Joey Gallo bunted for a hit with two outs to beat an infield shift.
Kiner-Falefa’s struggles look worse because it’s still April and there aren’t enough at-bats to better hide a slump as there would be in July or August. But he is struggling, either because he’s pressing too much or needs to make a tweak to his mechanics.
Manager Chris Woodward said Kiner-Falefa needs to stay in his legs. When he does that he hits line drives to the middle of the field, Woodward said, and when he doesn’t he tries to hit every single pitch.
“Like all the young hitters, you start to press a little bit,” Woodward said. “He’s leading off. He expects to run the offense. He knows his job is to get on base, and he’s getting pitched right now.
“He needs to relax and trust his ability.”
Kiner-Falefa later added a single in the ninth.
Lyles ditching tandem?
Right-hander Jordan Lyles allowed three runs in six innings, a quality start. It should have been two runs, but a Mike Trout flyball that should have been the first out of the fourth inning fell between David Dahl and Adolis Garcia and led to a run.
“Any time you get Mike Trout to hit one not hard, that ball’s got to be caught,” Woodward said.
Lyles pitched well enough for the fourth time this season for the Rangers to win. He has been dramatically better than he was last season, when he authored a 7.02 ERA and didn’t meet a hitter he couldn’t walk.
Lyles didn’t issue any free passes to the Angels, and needed only a very efficient 80 pitches to record 18 outs.
The Rangers challenged him in spring training to pitch well enough to shake loose form the confines of a pitching tandem, and he has. Woodward, though, wants to see more before altering the rotation.
“I don’t know if the sample size is big enough,” Woodward said. “He’s been pitching well. We just have to keep looking at how he maintains his stuff throughout the outing. Maybe that gets better as the season goes on. Guys typically have to build up that endurance to grab that extra gear at that 70-pitch mark.
The back end of the Lyles tandem had been Wes Benjamin, who was optioned to the alternate site over the weekend. Taylor Hearn followed Lyles on Tuesday, and once again couldn’t turn in a clean outing.
The Angels pounced on him for three runs in the seventh and loaded the bases against him with no outs in the eighth before Brett de Geus got out of the jam.
Hearn has allowed runs in five of seven outings, and that’s a problem right now for the bullpen.
“I’m concerned,” Woodward said. “I think it’s more pitching behind in the count and walking guys. ... I just don’t like when he’s pitching behind in counts, and a lot of times it’s that first hitter in an inning.”
Trouble for Taveras, White?
Garcia’s extended trial run is coming at the expense of Leody Taveras and Eli White, who haven’t had much luck at the plate and don’t have the notches on their belts to get the benefit of the doubt and keep playing.
The Rangers want Taveras to be their center fielder of the future, and chances are he will continue to get chances later in the year. He might first need a reset a Triple A Round Rock to get his feet back under him after opening the season with a .098 average (4 for 41, 19 strikeouts).
White is batting .167 (6 for 36). He isn’t quite as good of a defensive center fielder as Taveras, but both are better than Garcia.
Woodward isn’t down on Taveras or White. They’re young hitters learning on the fly, and they continue to work on fixing their woes while not in the lineup.
But production counts for something now that the games count for something.
“They’ve got to earn their playing time,” Woodward said. “I don’t have anything negative to say about them. It’s not because they’re not doing what we’re asking them to do. But it is performance-based, and what Adolis is doing right now, he’s playing really well. He deserves the at-bats.”
The minor-league seasons begin May 6. Khris Davis is expected to be ready to come off the injured list in mid-May. The Rangers might want to have an extra reliever at some point.
Taveras and White need to make the most of what little playing time they’re going to receive as long as Garcia is getting a long look.
