Roughed Odor’s double that followed Mike Napoli’s leadoff double of the second inning looked like it was going to lead to a promising night. But it didn’t.

There’s an old baseball axiom that good pitching beats good hitting.

The Rangers proved last night that bad pitching beats bad hitting.

The Twins’ Phil Hughes came into the game with a 5.40 ERA for the year and a 4.42 ERA for his ten-year career.

But his bad was good enough to dominate the Rangers pop-gun offense. The Rangers were able to squeak out just seven hits last night—five singles and two doubles—and push across just two runs.

They have scored two runs or fewer in six of their last eleven games. They have lost six of their last eleven games as well, not surprisingly. This is the second start of a season out of three in the Jeff Banister era where the offense has started colder than ice. Same thing happened in 2015.

Maybe the team isn’t prepared coming out of spring training. Maybe the team isn’t as good as advertised. Maybe the team is just in a funk it will eventually snap out of.

Today this anemic offense faces the pitcher with the most wins and the lowest ERA in all of baseball.

Should be interesting.

*****
TODAY’S GAME:

Ervin Santana (3-0, 0.64) vs. Andrew Cashner (0-1, 2.38)
Game time: 7:05

How the Twins hit against Cashner.
How the Rangers hit against Santana.