Rangers Beat Rockies for Third Straight Spring Win
The Texas Rangers defeated the Colorado Rockies, 6-4, on Monday in Surprise, Ariz. Here’s a breakdown of the game.
How the Rangers won: A Brad Miller solo home run in the bottom of the sixth broke a 4-4 tie and put the Rangers ahead for good.
Records: Colorado, 3-1; Texas, 3-2.
Winning pitcher: Jack Leiter (TEX, 1-0).
Losing pitcher: Karl Kauffmann (COL, 0-1).
Rangers at the plate: Second baseman Marcus Semien had a sparkling day at the plate, going 3-for-3 with a run scored to boost his spring training batting average to .500. Catcher Jonah Heim had two hits in three at-bats, while Jonathan Ornelas had two hits and drove in a run. Miller hit his home run as a pinch-hitter for Clint Frazier, who started as the designated hitter and hit his own home run earlier in the game. Semien also had a double.
Rangers on the mound: Cody Bradford started for the Rangers. The left-hander threw two innings, giving up three hits, one run and striking out one.
The Rockies scored their remaining three runs off of the next two pitchers. Ian Kennedy — who at one time was the Rangers’ closer in 2021 — gave up two hits and two runs in an inning of work, while walking one and striking out two. One of last season’s closers, Joe Barlow, gave up one run while striking out one in one inning of work. That tied the game in the fourth inning.
From there, Reyes Moronta, Jack Leiter, Lucas Jacobsen, Kumar Rocker and Kyle Cody each threw an inning of scoreless relief. Miller’s home run put Leiter in line for the win.
From the Park
Some tweets from Tuesday’s game.
Some Rangers infielders doing the best shift they can under the rules:
This is one way to get out of an inning:
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