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Down And Out: Texas Rangers Elect Not To Play For Comeback In 12-3 Loss To Kansas City

• D-tails – Boxscore: Royals 12, Rangers 3; Post-Game Show comment thread; The Depot live blog

ARLINGTON – On yet another night when Rangers pitching collapsed in a heat, the team still found itself at the intersection of Unlikely Comeback Boulevard and Meaningless Stats Way.

And that’s when the Rangers chose a most curious alternate route: The Surrender Expressway.

In an eventual 12-3 pasting at the hands of Kansas City, the Rangers opened the smallest crevice for a comeback in the seventh inning when, down 9-0, they loaded the bases with one out and had the top of the order coming to the plate.

After Ian Kinsler struck out, manager Ron Washington decided to pull his top clutch hitter, Michael Young, and replace him with 41-year-old Omar Vizquel. Washington had made the decision to start giving the veterans the last two innings off and told Vizquel he was in for Young.

“The [score] played a part in it,” Washington said. “We were down by nine runs and I wanted to get Omar an at-bat. I’ll take the blame. That’s on me. But I told Omar he was going in before the inning ever got started.”

The move wasn’t a game-breaker. The game-breaker was the 19 hits (including three homers) and seven walks surrendered by four Rangers pitchers. But it did seem to go against usual baseball protocol, which is to allow veterans to hit if there is one final chance to climb back into the game.

Young is a .341 career hitter with runners in scoring position, which ranks sixth among all active players. He is a .340 hitter with runners in scoring position and two outs, which ranks third among all active players.

“I think we would have liked to have seen what would have happened with Mike at the plate,” said left fielder Marlon Byrd. “I think [Washington] made the move he felt he needed to. I was thinking if Mike got up and then Josh [Hamilton] got up, well, you never know what might happen. You can always second-guess moves, but that’s the move we made.”

Said Young: “I think [Washington] wanted to get Omar in the game with us down by nine runs. My role is to play as hard as possible until I’m told I’m done.”
Coming back from nine runs would be a once-in-a-franchise type comeback and maybe the Rangers had already burned that when they rebounded from a 12-0 deficit last year at Boston to take a 17-14 lead before losing 19-17.

And there was nothing to suggest that had the Rangers made such a comeback Friday the pitching staff would have been able to keep them in the game. Each of the first three pitchers to appear allowed at least three runs.

After starter Matt Harrison deviated from his game plan and started “pitching backwards,” by throwing too many offspeed and breaking pitches and not enough fastballs, the bullpen couldn’t keep the game close.

“I got away from the game plan and that’s my fault and nobody else’s,” Harrison said. “I showed them everything I had early and when I came back to by changeups and breaking pitches later in the game, they had seen it well enough to recognize it and get enough on it for a hit. The game was going too fast in my head. I just needed to step off and think things through.”

Harrison allowed four runs in the second and was gone with two men on and no outs in the sixth. Willie Eyre allowed both runners to score before getting out of the inning, then allowed three successive doubles in the seventh before getting pulled for Josh Rupe. He a double of his own and two more runs in the eighth.

“It just wasn’t to be,” Washington said.

So the Rangers surrendered.