And the rival Houston Astros obliged the Rangers’ neighborly gesture by taking exactly what was presented to them: A 9-0 combined no-hitter over the Rangers by three pitchers, including a starter who entered the game with an ERA above 8 and a rookie making his major league debut.
It was, to put it mildly, maybe one of the most embarrassing no-hitters of all-time, in which the Rangers began the game with three walks in the first inning against Tatsuya Imai. They still couldn’t score and basically shut it down after that. Steven Okert and rookie Alimber Santa, in his major league debut, finished the game. That’s right, the Rangers didn’t even get anything from Santa.
It was the sixth time the Rangers have been no-hit since moving to Texas, though half of them have come in the six seasons since they moved into Globe Life Field, or as it’s starting to feel like: No Life Field. They were no-hit twice in the 102-loss misery otherwise known as the 2021 season. That season was misery enough for Rangers President of Baseball Operations Chris Young; this no-hitter came on his 47th birthday. What a gift.
The Rangers starting lineup on Tuesday featured three players who were in the opening day lineup against the Phillies: Brandon Nimmo, Danny Jansen and Andrew McCutchen. Jansen entered the game in a 2-for-20 skid; McCutchen got to that mark with his second-inning groundout.
It featured none of the opening day infielders. It was also without its two best players, Corey Seager and Wyatt Langford, who haven’t played together in a month. And it was missing its leading run-producer, Jake Burger, who was given a planned day off, and its top hitter, Josh Jung, who also leads the team in OPS and was nursing a sore shoulder. Three of the players in the lineup began the season in the minors.
Even with that mess, the Rangers threatened in the first inning, walking three times and still not managing to score a run. Joc Pederson and Alejandro Osuna started with walks in which they never swung the bat. Then Nimmo, getting a day as the DH, got ahead 2-and-0 before bouncing into a double play on the Rangers’ first swing of the game … on the 15th pitch they saw. Ezequiel Duran then took another walk on a 6-pitch duel in which he never swung the bat before Evan Carter popped up. In the inning, the Rangers saw 24 pitches and took more walks than swings and still didn’t score.
After that, they managed a fourth-inning walk immediately erased by another double-play grounder and a seventh-inning leadoff walk that amounted to nothing.
That was the theme of the day: Nothingness.