Foltynewicz Gives Up Three More Homers As Rangers Lose Ninth Straight Game

Texas Rangers starter Mike Foltynewicz struggled yet again with the long ball in Thursday's 7-5 loss to the Detroit Tigers.

Author:
Chris Halicke
Jul 22, 2021 5:27 PM EDT

In this story:

Mike FoltynewiczTaylor Hearn

Things looked a little better on Thursday, but the Texas Rangers found themselves in the loss column for the ninth straight game.

The Rangers were swept in a four-game series by the Detroit Tigers, with Thursday's 7-5 loss as the nail in the coffin before the team heads to Houston for three games. Rangers starter Mike Foltynewicz was tagged with three home runs, which now give him 31 allowed this season — far and away the most in Major League Baseball.

Foltynewicz managed to get through four innings, but allowed six runs (five earned) on five hits with two walks and four strikeouts. However, the most alarming part of Foltynewicz's day was his lack of control on his emotions.

After Sunday's beating by the Toronto Blue Jays, manager Chris Woodward came to Foltynewicz's defense when we asked about his body language on the mound, saying, "I feel like overall, emotionally, he's been controlling it a lot better than he did earlier in the year."

That was not the case after Thursday's loss.

"He's gotta be better than that," Woodward said. "It's something that we've addressed and he's gotta show a little bit better composure, [especially] being an older guy. ... He't gotta set the tone and not let younger guys see that bad body language."

Taylor Hearn was able to come in and stop the bleeding. He pitched 2 1/3 solid innings, giving up just one run that came by a lead-off walk in the seventh inning. Hearn was pulled after getting the first out of the frame and Joe Barlow was unable to keep the runner from scoring on a lucky flare out to left field by Robbie Grossman.

The Rangers have toyed with the idea of stretching Hearn out to a longer role. Chris Woodward confirmed after the game that they will now intend to do just that, especially with the strong possibility that rotation spots will open up after the trade deadline.

"We're talking about a lot of different things, but ... we definitely want to stretch Taylor out," Woodward said. "We're probably going to wait until [the trade deadline] to make any moves. But Taylor is definitely on the radar. We don't have a whole lot of depth in Triple-A or even in our bullpen to lengthen out except for him and [John] King."

Sunday will be a bullpen day for the Rangers and Hearn is in line to pitch multiple innings as a precursor for any moves beyond next week.

The bright side of the day came at the plate as the Rangers broke out of arguably the coldest streak in franchise history. They scored five runs on seven hits and did much better with runners in scoring position, going 3-for-7 on the day.

"It was much better," said Woodward. "There was a lot more fight there. I thought [Tyler] Alexander pitched pretty well against us. Once he got out of the game, we strung together some good at-bats, especially in big spots. ... Much better at-bats today."

The Rangers (35-62) will now travel to Houston to face off with the first-place Astros (58-39) for a three-game weekend series. Texas will send out southpaw Kolby Allard (2-7, 4.06 ERA) on Friday night to face off against Houston's Jake Odorizzi (3-5, 4.09 ERA).