ARLINGTON, TEXAS — In front of a crowd of 47,253, the Rangers fell to the Astros 4-1 on opening day. The bats were quiet, and the pitching was not anything to brag about, however, there were some positives for the team. Elvis Andrus continued his hot streak from last season by going 2-for-3 with a run, and after a rocky first inning Cole Hamels settled down and left the game one out away from a quality start. “I thought Cole was fairly sharp as the game went on” Jeff Banister said about his ace.
George Springer made major league history by becoming the first player to hit leadoff homeruns in consecutive opening days. In the third inning, Hamels found himself in trouble after a single by Brian McCann and a couple of walks. He was able to work out of it with minimal damage, only allowing one run when Jose Altuve hit a sac fly that scored McCann. After a quick 2 outs in the top of the 4th Hamels couldn’t locate his fast ball and left it up in the zone for Jake Marisnick who was able to hit a homerun off the left field foul pole.
There was not much to write home about regarding the offense. Andrus scampered home on a wild pitch by closer Ken Giles in the bottom of the 9th to score the lone run for the Rangers. Justin Verlander continued his dominance in an Astros uniform, shutting the Rangers down for 6 innings.
The Rangers had a couple chances when they had the first two guys on in the second inning but could not score, they also were not able to capitalize in the bottom of the 6th when they had two guys on.
The bullpen was the shining star, as they in total pitched 3.1 innings only giving up 1 hit, 1 run, and striking out 6. The Rangers look to rebound tomorrow against southpaw Dallas Keuchel. Doug Fister toes the rubber in game 2 of this 4-game set for his first start with the Rangers. First pitch is at 7:05pm.
