ARLINGTON, Texas — The Texas Rangers baseball club played their second game of the a three game series last night with the Chicago Cubs and prevailed in Arlington, 8-6 in a comeback victory.
The game result was looking to be another loss heading into the bottom of the 8th with just one inning remaining, but Joey Gallo said no thank you as he hammered a three-run homer to centerfield for his lone hit of the night, giving the Rangers the victory. The win gives them a chance to win their opening season series for the first time in two seasons with just one game left in the series. Rangers new manager, Chris Woodward, earns his first managerial win.
“I just wanted to come through for the team,” Gallo said. ‘Honestly, I had a few opportunities early on and I didn’t come through. I knew if I got a pitch to hit I wasn’t going to miss it this time. It’s a good feeling, for sure.”
Last year the club dropped their first SIX home series matchups. This is also the first season that Texas will play an entire series in the month of March. The team must establish themselves at home and ensure they protect homefield to prevent such a streak in consecutive seasons. This weekend is just the 3rd time the Cubs have ever played the Rangers in Arlington in the regular season, the last series coming back in 2010 when the Rangers won 2-of-3 to take the series.
Offensively the Rangers showed quite an improvement compared to Thursdays thrashing on their Opening Day game, but still have a ways to go. The team was 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position before the Gallo home run. Rangers got 11 hits on 32 total at-bats last night as opposed to Thursday night when they got five less hits on the same number of at-bats and home runs (2). Lots of room to grow for the team remains as they left 25 players on base compared to the Cubs just 15 left on One of our newest additions to the team, Asdrubal Cabrera, was a nice spark for the Rangers in game two as he was one of the two home runs for the Rangers and went 3-for-4 at the plate. In 2018, when the Rangers hit multiple home runs in a game the club was 34-16 and even won sixteen consecutive games with two or more home runs. So far 1-1 with multiple home runs in the 2019 season.
The baseball Gods were in favor of Texas last night as former ace, Yu Darvish played against his former team and walked a career-high seven batters out of the twelve total walks the Rangers had in the game. This put a lot of pressure on the Chicago Cubs bullpen and the Rangers ended up taking advantage late. Darvish went back-to-back innings walking three consecutive batters and allowed the Rangers chance after chance to stay in the game. The Cubs still played well in the field and at the plate, but the pitching could not pick up what little slack was left. The game was more so the fact the Rangers took advantage and not the Cubs giving it away. Three different Cubs player had two of more hits in the game, with Contreras and Schwarber each going 3-for-5 at the plate. Five players in the Cubs starting lineup didn’t record a single hit in the game.
“It doesn’t mean as much to me as it does the belief that group needs to have,” Woodward said regarding the win. “Our identity is being resilient and never giving up, not chasing results, but chasing the process, that’s just music to my ears. It almost made me shed a tear you hear one of your best players say that. I hope this is just an understanding, we just faced a really good team and faced some really good pitching.”
The Cubs still lead the all-time series 9-8 and the Rangers have now tied the home series record at 4-4. In the 2nd game of the season, the Rangers are now 26-22 all-time.
Up Next: Rangers will remain in Arlington for their last game of the series vs the Cubs tonight with first pitch set for 3:05 p.m. where the game can be viewed on Fox Sports Southwest and ESPN, as well as broadcast on 105.3 The Fan. Right-handed pitcher Lance Lynn will make his Texas debut.
