{"id":362540,"date":"2026-07-06T12:07:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T12:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/362540\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T12:07:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T12:07:09","slug":"rangers-run-out-of-gas-after-torrid-stretch-fall-to-500-vs-tigers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/362540\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers run out of gas after torrid stretch, fall to .500 vs. Tigers"},"content":{"rendered":"

ARLINGTON \u2014 The\u00a0Rangers<\/a>, like their starting pitcher in Sunday’s rubber match, seemingly ran\u00a0out of gas after an impressive road trip<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Their improbable run of play \u2014 one that briefly lifted them atop the American League West division<\/a> \u2014 stalled in a 6-3 loss to the Detroit Tigers at Globe Life Field on Sunday afternoon. The game was marred by a messy fifth inning, and it secured consecutive losses for the first time in a week and a half, a series defeat and a drop back down to a .500 record.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rangers right-handed pitcher Kumar Rocker, who shined in his two previous appearances on the most recent road trip,\u00a0cruised through three scoreless innings before self-described “out of whack” mechanics led to a\u00a0velocity dip. His four-seam fastball and sinker averaged 94-95 mph in the first three frames, but the speed dropped a tick in the fourth when Tigers left fielder Riley Greene hit a go-ahead home run off a middle-middle 92.6 mph heater, and it slowed even further in the fifth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rocker threw a pair of\u00a0fastballs in the fifth inning \u2014 neither of which cracked 93 mph \u2014 and allowed a softly hit dribbler on the second of the two to Tigers center fielder James Outman with one out. The ball rolled to the left of the pitcher’s mound, and because Rocker gave a late jog toward the play, first baseman Jake Burger<\/a> was forced to field it. It left the bag uncovered and allowed Outman to reach with relative ease.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think either Rocker chases the ball right away or he gets to the bag,” Rangers manager Skip Schumaker<\/a> said. “He kind of got caught in the middle, and once you get caught in the middle, Burger had no chance either way. That particular baseball that was hit, the second baseman has no chance, so the pitcher usually has to chase the ball. He kind of went off late to go get the ball and at that point Burger had to go and get it.”<\/p>\n

Said Rocker, who struggled at times to field his position last year but has showed strides of improvement this season: “It was one of those no-man’s land balls, so it’s kind of like a, what’re you going to do?”<\/p>\n

Schumaker lifted Rocker from the game after that play in large part because the 26-year-old was “laboring and tiring” with a dip in command and velocity after only 85 pitches. Rocker has already logged a career-high for innings in a single professional season, but despite that,\u00a0Schumaker said there have been no apparent signs prior that the former first-round pick has felt any wear and tear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He inserted left-handed pitcher Robby Ahlstrom to face a stretch of three left-handed hitters in a four-batter stretch after Outman’s infield single.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Unfortunately,” Schumaker said, “it just didn’t work out.”<\/p>\n

Ahlstrom gave up\u00a0consecutive singles to third baseman Kevin McGonigle and catcher Dillon Dingler and allowed the inherited runner to score. Right fielder Kerry Carpenter reached on a catcher’s interference, McGonigle scored on a wild pitch and Green drove in two more runs with a triple off the left field wall that gave the Tigers a 6-1 lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Rangers, who held a 1-0 lead through three frames after Burger hit a second-deck solo home run, pieced together two more scores. Right fielder Brandon\u00a0Nimmo drove in shortstop Nicky Lopez with a single in the fifth inning, and third baseman Ezequiel Duran hit a solo home run in the eighth.<\/p>\n

The Rangers averaged five runs and more than nine hits per game on their 15-games-in-15-days stretch, but in their first two games upon its completion against the Tigers, they totaled just three runs on nine hits despite a fair amount of well-struck balls.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON \u2014 The\u00a0Rangers, like their starting pitcher in Sunday’s rubber match, seemingly ran\u00a0out of gas after an impressive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,89744],"class_list":["post-362540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-tp-texas-rangers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}