With their playoff hopes on the line, the Texas Rangers started their massive series against the Minnesota Twins with a 10-2 defeat.
On Friday night, the Texas Rangers' biggest regular-season series of the last two years got underway, and things did not go smoothly.
Texas fell 10-2 to the Minnesota Twins after starter Jacob deGrom allowed six earned runs in the second inning. The Rangers ace would finish allowing eight earned runs in four innings of work.
“The first inning was fine, and then in the second, I was terrible,” deGrom said after the game. “It’s embarrassing to go out there and put us in that situation after we scored early. I don’t really know what to say; it just got out of hand, and I couldn’t get it back under control.
deGrom addresses his outing
"Like I said, it’s embarrassing; I was terrible, and I didn’t make any pitches when I needed to," deGrom continued. "We gotta hope for a positive outcome in Sacramento and hopefully win the next two."
As deGrom alluded to, the Rangers did get on the board first as they struck for a pair of runs in the opening frame.
Corey Seager laced an RBI single into right to open the scoring, and Wyatt Langford came through with a run-producing groundout to give Texas an instant 2-0 lead.
However, despite scoring two runs, that inning will go down as a major loss for the Rangers.
In just the second at-bat of the game, Texas third baseman Josh Jung was struck on the hand with a 95 MPH fastball out of the hand of Twins starter Joe Ryan.
Josh Jung injury concerning
Jung remained in the game to run the bases but, after scoring a run, went down into the Rangers' locker room for X-rays, where it was revealed that he sustained a fracture.
“The initial X-Ray was a fracture,” Texas manager Skip Schumaker said. “We’re going to get more testing done and see what happens with the other testing involved, but if he’s out, that’s pretty significant.
"He and Joc [Pederson] both with hand or wrist fractures is not ideal at this time of year, but we still gotta go. We have two games left, and we gotta figure this thing out.”
Still, even with Jung going down, the Rangers throwing the first punch felt like it was going to lead to a massive blow, but unfortunately for Texas, that never came.
“Quite honestly, I thought when we got the first two runs to start the game, I thought that was going to be one of those games where we continue to add on, and Jacob was going to have one of his Jacob deGrom days, but that flipped pretty quick, and unfortunately they kept putting up crooked numbers,” Schumaker said.
