Kyle Hendricks did not have it tonight, and this Rangers lineup is just too loaded to let a pitcher like Hendricks off the hook when he doesn’t have his premium command. The velocity was good for Hendricks, and he was hitting the edges of the zone, but everything was thigh or belt high (except the two homers which were at the bottom and top of the zone, apparently right where Jared Walsh and Adolis Garcia like them, respectively – Walsh looked like a bad call, and Garcias was a bad miss). That led to a lot of hard hits that found grass, and also a lot of prolonged, deep counts when he was getting fouled off and missing outside the edges.
I am a dingleberry for only saying it now instead of last week when the rotation was announced, but why was Hendricks getting this assignment in Texas instead of the Rockies at Wrigley in the cold? That’s ideal for him, and sure I get that you wanted to break up the lefties and protect Javier Assad, but dang.
Meanwhile, we got to see Ben Brown make his big league debut in relief tonight, and it was roughly what we expected to see: the four-seamer and the unique curveball are big league pitches, but he was a little amped and overthrowing the latter (kept burying it). All the runs in his second inning of work were a bit of a hybrid situation: he wasn’t making great pitches and was giving up some hard contact, but there were also major gaffes behind him, a flukey ball off his leg, and a missed strike three call. The results that inning could’ve been a lot different with him doing the exact same things, so I’m not thinking too much about the results. It’s all about the experience, and I wonder what he’ll take away from this.
I’ll also be very curious to see his usage from here, since he could no longer take Wednesday’s vacated-Justin-Steele start on normal rest. Next outing as a piggyback next week, maybe? Drew Smyly for three or four, Brown for three? Or you just let him pitch in traditional relief as needed? Or if he’s not needed the next few days, you have him start on Friday after the off-day?
Offensively, there’s not too much to say. Not like it was a close one, and the Swanson homer was it. Defensively, it’s hard not to have noticed the two complete whiffs at third base by Christopher Morel (somehow home-cookingly scored as hits). Cannot have that. We know there will be growing pains, and mistakes will happen. But the extreme ones like those need to be gone and quickly.