It’s not often the Rangers drive in a runner in scoring position as Shin-Soo Choo did. So, when it happens, it deserves to be celebrated.

Eric Nadel, in classic Nadel style, called the play of the San Diego Padres “buffoonery.”

That’s pretty much what it took for the Rangers to win last night. You aren’t going to win too many games where you go 1-for-13 with runners in scoring position. Where your cleanup hitter strikes out four times, and has now struck out eighteen times in his last thirty-six at-bats.

You aren’t going to win too many games when you get runners picked off of second on a regular basis. When your team strikes out ten times a game.

These are all the sins the Rangers have been committing on a regular basis so far this season and explain why they are a last-place team.

But when all of that happens against the San Diego Padres, one team that is actually worse than the Rangers, it sure helps.

Texas scored four runs. One on a wild pitch. One on a balk. One on an error. The only legit run they got was with that hit with a runner in scoring position.

Four runs. they earned one of them.

The win wasn’t deserved. But it will be taken. So many of Texas’s twenty losses came this way. It’s good to be on the receiving end for once.

It was like an inter squad game.

*****
TODAY’S GAME:

Clayton Richard (2-4, 4.87) vs. Martin Perez (1-5, 4.06)
Game time: 7:05

How the Padres hit against Perez.
How the Rangers hit against Richard.