Two-hundred forty-nine pitches. Eleven walks. Two batters hit. Four errors. Eight hits. Nine runs. 

After the tragedy of Monday, you would have expected it would have been the Angels who would not have come out sharp. Instead, it was the Rangers who played sloppy, unfocused baseball Tuesday night, from the very first batter.

David Fletcher led off the game with a bloop that Gallo and DeShields let fall between them, then DeShields let roll past him. He eventually scored.

The Rangers took a 3-1 lead. Usually with Mike Minor on the mound, that is good enough. But Minor wasn’t sharp and he racked up the pitches. When they took him out with just one out in the fifth, he had already thrown 110 pitches to get thirteen outs. It took five more Rangers pitchers 139 pitches to get the next fourteen outs. Brett Martin allowed the two runners he inherited to score. The Rangers bullpen gave up six runs after that.

It was the worst-played Rangers game of the season. The longest nine-inning game of the season. And the most pitches the Rangers had ever thrown in a nine-inning game.

It was simply the game that just wouldn’t end. 

Now the Rangers have lost three in a row. But, on the bright side, if they lose a hundred in a row, none would be as bad as this one.

So it’s all uphill from here.

*****

TODAY’S GAME:

Griffin Canning (3-4, 3.79) vs. Ariel Jurado (5-3, 3.90)

Game time: 7:05