Undone by Cron again. 36 comments


Shin-Soo Choo connects on his fifth home run of the season, putting the Rangers up 1-0 early.

 

Superman had Lex Luthor. Batman had the Joker. Rachel Dolezal had Reality. The Texas Rangers have C. J. Cron.

He is the Rangers arch nemesis. It doesn’t matter that he traded his Angels uniform for a Rays uniform.

He struck again yesterday in the sixth inning.

Here’s a guy who is a career 254 hitter, and a career OPSer of .714. But against the Texas Rangers he is .297/.819. He has by far his most RBIs against the Rangers than any other team. After yesterday, he has driven in 44 runs against Texas. The next most is 22 against Houston. That’s the definition of bullying.

He is a one-man Rangers wrecking crew.

Yesterday, Cole Hamels was cruising through five innings. He had gotten through the danger zone, which for him was the first inning, and specifically, the first batter, retiring the first seven Rays he faced and fifteen of the first seventeen. He was in complete control of his changeup and fastball.

Then the sixth inning happened. Which has been atypical of a Hamels start in 2017.

This season Hamels has actually been a starter who has gotten stronger the longer he pitches into games and has defied that silliness that a pitcher cannot go through a lineup more than twice.

But yesterday his changeup abandoned him in the sixth.

Unfortunately for him, after loading the bases with one out, who should step up to the plate in a game that was tied at 1-1 but C. J. Cron.

As Cron always seems to do against Texas, he drove in the go-ahead run with a single that set up the insurance run when the following batter hit a sac fly.

When the inning was over, the Rays had a 3-1 lead and the Rangers bats couldn’t bail them out.

As is so often the case this year with Hamels, one inning did him in. Usually it’s the first. Yesterday it was the sixth.

But as is so often the case with the Rangers, C. J. Cron did them in.

*****

NO GAME TODAY.