Allard, Rangers Thumped in Second Game of Doubleheader with A's

ARLINGTON, Texas — The Texas Rangers had to settle for a split in Saturday's doubleheader as the Oakland Athletics ran away with game two by a score of 10-1.

In similar fashion to the first inning on Friday night, the A's won this game early. The second inning of Saturday night's second leg was one Rangers starter Kolby Allard will want to forget rather quickly.

After a solid first inning, Allard was booted after the first six batters of the second inning reached safely while four runs scored. Taylor Hearn eventually stopped the bleeding, but it came with two bases-loaded walks and ultimately a 7-spot on the scoreboard.

Allard has struggled much more often than he's done well this season, which begs the question of what exactly is going on with Kolby?

“I don’t know, to be honest with you," Rangers manager Chris Woodward said. "We’ve got to figure it out. I know the kid’s competitive. He's got good stuff. The first time he got a runner on, he was fine and seemed OK. But it's almost when things start kind of going south this year, he has not been able to stop the bleeding."

Allard has seemed to struggle more often with runners on base rather than when the bases are empty. That could be a mechanical issue (pitching out of the stretch) or it could be a mental roadblock that snowballs when there's added pressure.

"It's something we got to talk through and try to really figure out and get down to the details of what what is happening," Woodward said. "I don't know at this point if it's a mechanical thing, if I'm being honest. I think just the lack of success at times is maybe getting to him a little bit. Maybe he doesn't have the same conviction behind the pitches and isn't able to execute."

The Rangers' lone run came on a Joey Gallo home run, which isn't all that surprising. What was a nice surprise was two different Rangers recorded their first big league hits on Saturday night. Catcher Sam Huff hit a hard liner for a single in the sixth inning and Sherten Apostel also singled for his first career hit in the seventh inning.

Apostel was called up very shortly before the game after Elvis Andrus had to be placed on the 10-day IL with a back strain and Anderson Tejeda was scratched with a stomach virus. After the game, Apostel admitted he found out only 20 minutes ahead of the game that he was playing.

"Everything was rushed," Apostel detailed. "I couldn't even get my clothes on. It was like, "are you ready, are you ready? Let's go. You gotta go.' Everything was fast. I didn't even have a chance to change my socks. I just kept the socks I had on at home, the same boxers. I basically just put baseball clothes on top of everything I had."

If that doesn't sound like a Major League debut in 2020, I don't know what does.

The Rangers conclude the series and the homestand on Sunday afternoon with Lance Lynn taking the ball for Texas.

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