It’s easy to blame yesterday’s loss on a bullpen collapse. After all, that’s exactly what happened.

Andrew Heaney was in trouble all game, walking Astros, giving up hits, loading the bases. While he was able to get out of it, he wasn’t even able to get through five innings, being pulled from the game with two outs in the fourth inning, with the Rangers up 2-1. Jacob Latz came in, allowed the tying run to score. Then in the seventh, Jose Ureña allowed seven runs to score to bury the Rangers.

But the real culprit was the offense.

They got two runs in the first, then the bats went into sleep mode. They left a runner on in the second. Erased a runner in the third with a double play. Left a runner on in the fourth, and again in the sixth. Loaded the bases in the seventh and didn’t score.

So, when the bottom of the seventh came around, without a lead, Bruce Bochy, like major league managers do, went with his B-bullpen. Ureña had been lights out this season up to this point, though, giving up no runs in nine innings, so it wasn’t like Bochy was throwing up the white flag. But if the Rangers of would have had a lead, he would have gone with the A-pen of David Robertson and Kirby Yates to shut it down. 

The lack of offense dictated the bullpen choice. 

The lack of offense has been too frequent for this team. Someone needs to step up, get hot, and kickstart the rest of them.

Might as well do that today.

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