Unfortunately for the Texas Rangers, Nathan Eovaldi’s struggles continued as he allowed six earned runs in 8-1 loss to the Athletics.
There's no denying Nathan Eovaldi hasn't been himself early on this season. Entering play on Friday, Eovaldi featured an uncharacteristic 5.06 ERA.
Unfortunately for the Texas Rangers, Eovaldi’s struggles continued as he allowed six earned runs and the team fell 8-1 to the Athletics.
It didn’t take long for the A’s to jump on Eovaldi as star first baseman Nick Kurtz took the first offering from the Rangers righty into the right-field seats.
After recording his first out of the game, the next two batters also took Eovaldi deep, marking three home runs on his first seven pitches of the night.
Eovaldi would settle in during the middle innings but in the fifth A’s DH Carlos Cortes blasted a three-run home run for his second of the night to crack the game wide open.
“I just feel like especially the first inning, the pitches were all middle” Eovaldi said after his tough night.
“They’re an aggressive swinging team and those pitches were belt high middle as can be… it’s frustrating because you put in the work in between [starts] and there’s games where there’s hit after hit or their battling but when it’s 0-0 and just the way they’re getting the runs it’s deflating for us and obviously it’s on me,” Eovaldi said.
Eovaldi did keep the Rangers within striking distance for much of the night, but Texas was just unable to claw their way back into the game.
The lone Rangers run came in the fourth when Josh Jung laced a two-out RBI double to score Corey Seager but nothing materialized after that.
“We just didn’t get the big hit with runners in scoring position,” first-year Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said.
“We had our chances a couple of times, just couldn’t break through. [A’s Starter Luis] Severino was good, he threw our guys up and in, our lefties up and in we just couldn’t get to the fastball which opened up the breaking ball.
"With our righties, he just kinda lived away and we chased off at times… again we had guys on base we just couldn’t get a couple runs here and there to keep the game close” Schumaker finished.
With the loss, the Rangers '2026 season record falls back to .500 at 13-13. Texas will have a chance to get back above .500 Saturday night as they will take on the Athletics once again at 6:05 p.m.
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