It felt like Turn Back the Clock night at The Shed last night. Only, the teams didn’t don uniforms from the past. No, last night the Rangers turned back the clock all the way to 2022, when their starting pitching wasn’t major league caliber, and they would get throttled on a regular basis.

It felt like when Kolby Allard or Spencer Howard or Taylor Hearn or Kohai Arihara or any of the Dollar General store pitchers Jon Daniels would run out there with a straight face and keep the opposing team’s scoreboard operator busy.

To be fair to Cody Bradford, he isn’t Spencer Howard. But he was sent out to take a bullet for the team. Sent out to see what he could do.

He has been dominating Triple-A, 5-1 with an 0.91 ERA. So, to be fair again, he deserved an opportunity. 

It just felt like he was thrown to the wolves, those wolves being the best team in the National League, the Atlanta Braves, who were coming off their season-worst four-game losing streak and were really looking to turn things around.

Bradford pitched five innings, giving up six runs, striking out three and walking two. 

The Rangers lost 12-0. They never had a rally going. They gave up five two-run home runs. They had only one runner get to third. It was just an ugly night of Rangers baseball.

Like last year. And 2021. And 2020. And 2019. And 2018. And 2017.

*****