Texas Rangers starter Jack Leiter allowed four first-inning runs as the team fell to the Minnesota Twins 9-3.
ARLINGTON, Texas -- Two of the Texas Rangers' starting pitchers’ biggest struggles this season have been finishing off batters with two strikes and two outs and getting out of the first inning unharmed.
Both of those things plagued Texas starter Jack Leiter on Wednesday afternoon as the Rangers fell 9-3 to the Minnesota Twins.
Leiter was one strike away from getting out of a first-inning jam when Twins designated hitter Josh Bell slammed an RBI single up the middle. The very next batter was third baseman Brooks Lee, who laced a three-run home run to make it 4-0 Twins and force what proved to be yet another early and insurmountable deficit for the Rangers.
“We went into the game with the mindset of wanting to be on the attack and in those leverage counts, and then once you’re in them, it’s about putting those guys away, and we weren’t able to do that,” Leiter said after the game.
Leiter has now lost his last three starts, and his 5.45 ERA is the second-highest amongst qualified American League starters.
“Jack’s got the stuff, he’s got the demeanor, he’s got the toughness, everything you want in a starting pitcher, Jack has,” Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said after the game. “Unfortunately, his last couple of starts, he’s been hurt by certain pitches… just execution of some of the pitches has cost him, lately they’ve been put in play and slugged…”
The Rangers' offense did provide three solo home runs, with Wyatt Langford and Ezequiel Duran going deep in the sixth and Justin Foscue hitting his fourth home run of the season in the ninth, yet it wasn’t enough for Texas to make the game competitive.
With the loss, the Rangers were swept by the Twins and fell four games below .500 at 35-39 on the season. Texas has now lost five of its last six games
“I think how you break that pattern is have a really good start by someone and break that up, and I think that’s what’s going to happen here soon,” Schumaker said. “That’s the frustrating part for us is that these are really good players, so as a coaching staff, we have to figure out how to get them right.
“It’s not like these guys are rookie, fingly players," Schumaker continued. "These are really good pitchers who have really good stuff, so we have to figure out how to get them better and get them right because this is the group that we really believe in, so it’s up to us to get it.”
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