Why Texas Rangers’ scoring barrage vs. Miami Marlins was an unusual, but welcome sign

MIAMI — The Rangers took a novel approach Saturday in their ongoing trials against left-handed pitching. They went with conventional wisdom.

Something to be said for that, too.

On Saturday, in a 7-0 win over Miami and lefty Ryan Weathers, the Rangers scrounged around for any and all right-handed hitters they could find and shoved them into the lineup, preferably toward the top. Runs fell from the roof of LoanDepot Park.

The Rangers sat struggling left-handed-hitting first baseman Nathaniel Lowe and pushed veteran switch-hitter Robbie Grossman into the No. 3 spot to give them more right-handed bats in the top of the lineup. And they were a veritable machine, scoring their most runs in more than three weeks. They hadn’t scored more than six runs in a game since May 8. They managed two in the series-opening 8-2 loss Friday.

“I just thought we had better at-bats,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “We took some more aggressive swings. We did a lot of good things coming off an ugly loss.”

Especially if you overlook the 16 strikeouts they piled up against Weathers and a trio of relievers. It was the most strikeouts by the Rangers in a nine-inning win in five years. Details. It’s one step at a time. Or two. They scored runs. They beat a lefty. They’ll work on the contact thing next time around.

Besides, they’ve got plenty of time to make progress against lefties in the next week. They’ll face another, Trevor Rogers, in Sunday’s conclusion at the Depot of Gloom, where the place always seems dark and empty. Then, when they return home Monday, they’ll face Detroit’s Tarik Skubal, who has the highest WAR of any lefty in the majors, according to FanGraphs. Next weekend, they are tentatively scheduled to face San Francisco’s Blake Snell, who has won two Cy Young Awards.

Teams are piling up lefties against the Rangers. They entered Saturday 8-9 against left-handed starters, but, since the start of May, the Rangers have spiraled downward against them badly. They had lost five of their last six games against lefty starters. In those six games, they scored a total of 15 runs, hit .208 and struck out in 22% of their at-bats.

The problem this season so far hasn’t been pitching, as had been the fear. Despite an epidemic of injuries, the rotation entered Saturday with a 3.64 ERA, seventh in the 15-team American League. Late spring signee Michael Lorenzen lowered that to 3.57 with 6⅓ scoreless innings. Lorenzen has pitched at least six innings in each of his last eight starts for the Rangers.

As the season progressed, the lefty issue became much more pronounced, especially after Josh Jung, the expected No. 3 hitter was lost to a fractured wrist four games into the season. The Rangers fiddled with some changes, most notably sitting Evan Carter (now on the injured list) against lefties. Then they dropped Lowe from the No. 3 spot to No. 6, and replaced him with Josh Smith, who has been their most consistent hitter. Smith, however, is also a left-handed hitter. Not ideal.

On Saturday, Bochy sat Lowe, who slugged just .313 in May, altogether. He pushed Grossman back into the No. 3 spot and backed up Adolis García with right-handed-hitting Ezequiel Duran. He was followed by right-handed-hitting Wyatt Langford. It marked the first time in more than a month that the Rangers’ No. 3-6 hitters were all right-handed hitters.

It paid off. They combined to go 11 for 25 with five of the club’s seven RBIs. In the third, with two on and one out, Grossman picked a sweeper off the dirt and yanked it into the left-field corner to score Andrew Knizner. Corey Seager went to third, then scored on García’s sac fly. Grossman would later have an RBI single.

“I know I’m a good player and I know what I can do,” Grossman said. “I was just trying not to do too much and stick with the plan.”

In the fourth, Langford led off with a single and sped to third on Smith’s follow-up single to right. When the throw from Jesús Sánchez, was wild, Weathers tried to stop it before it got to the Marlins dugout and instead wound up with a face full of dirt. Langford jogged home. Smith scored two batters later on Knizner’s sacrifice fly. That’s right, folks, the Rangers had two — two! — sacrifice flies, a single-season high.

Bochy was coy about whether he was open to using this lineup again against Rogers in the series finale. But he didn’t rule out the possibility of doing it again.

It’s June, now. The time for finding out about this team was the first two months of the season. Now, it’s time to figure it out.

“We had lost a little bit of swagger,” Bochy said of his offense before the game and to be sure, he clarified he wasn’t just talking about the battles against lefties.

“We need to get that back. Everything has to do with success. When guys aren’t doing what they are used to doing, you have to remind them how good they are. It can get away from you. This game can humble you. We’ve not quite played up to our standards. The offense wasn’t up to our standards. It left us for a little bit.”

The Rangers are hoping they found something on Saturday.

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