American League Divisional Series
Texas Rangers at Toronto Blue Jays
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The Texas Rangers and the Toronto Blue Jays continued their best of 5 American League Divisional Series on Friday at the Rogers Centre in Toronto. The Rangers took Game 1 on Thursday by a score of 5-3. In the first four games of the MLB playoffs, the road team has won every one.
The Rangers had Cole Hamels pitching against Marcus Stroman of the Blue Jays. Hamels was a trade deadline pickup for the Rangers, and at the time it was considered to be a move with an eye toward 2016. They caught fire, however, and they won the American League West, earning the right to play the Blue Jays in the playoffs. Stroman, on the other hand, was not expected to pitch at all this year after tearing his ACL in spring training. He defied the odds and made it back for four starts in the regular season.
The Rangers got off to a fast start. Delino DeShields led off the game with a double to right field. Shin-Soo Choo drove in Shields with a ground ball up the middle. Prince Fielder singled off the glove of second baseman Ryan Goins and Choo advanced to third. Mitch Moreland hit into a fielder’s choice to Chris Colabello. Colabello took the ball, threw home and Choo was hung up between third and home. Russell Martin started toward third and threw it wide of Josh Donaldson, allowing Choo to score.
Colabello stayed busy at first in the first inning, as Elvis Andrus hit a ground ball that Colabello fielded for the first out. Fielder advanced to third on the play and Moreland advanced to second. Colabello then fielded a ground ball by Josh Hamilton and beat him to the base for the second out. He looked up and he had Fielder caught between third and home, so he ran at Fielder and tagged him out for an unassisted double play to end the inning.
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Josh Donaldson hit a one-out home run on a 3-2 pitch from Hamels to cut the deficit to 2-1.
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Rougned Odor walked to lead off the second inning. He advanced to third when nobody covered the base on a high chopper by Chris Gimenez behind the mound. He scored on a shallow fly ball to center field, using a creative slide to avoid the tag.
Troy Tulowitzki reached on an error and Colabello hit a ground rule double down the right field line. Martin hit a single to over the right fielder’s head to score Tulowitzki, but Colabello had to hold up to make sure the ball was not caught, leaving runners at first and third with nobody out. Colabello scored when Kevin Pillar hit into a double play. Ryan Goins grounded out to end the inning with the score tied at 3 after two innings.
Pillar led off the bottom of the fifth with a bloop double over Moreland. Pillar moved over to second on a sacrifice bunt by Goins and scored on a Ben Revere single to give the Blue Jays their first lead of the series. After five innings, it was 4-3 Blue Jays.
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Stroman had settled down after a rough first inning. He gave up the leadoff walk in the second, then set down the next 14 batters. DeShields led off the eighth inning with a base hit. Stroman was taken out in favor of lefty Brett Cecil. DeShields moved up on a sacrifice bunt by Choo and scored on a two-out base hit by pinch hitter Mike Napoli to tie the game at 4. Stroman’s final line was seven innings pitched, four runs (three earned) on five hits and two walks, and he had five strikeouts.
Revere led off the bottom of the eighth inning with an infield hit. Revere stole second with one out to give Bautista a runner in scoring position with just one out. After an intentional walk to Encarnarcion, Odor made a great play to get Tulowitzki out at first to end the inning.
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The score remained knotted up after nine and they went into extra innings. Fielder and Napoli drew one-out walks in the top of the 11th, but Andrus grounded into a force out and Hamilton flied out to center.
Colabello singled to lead off the bottom of the 12th, but was stranded there. Each team got a two-out base runner, but neither team would capitalize on it.
Odor singled with two outs in the top of the 14th inning. Chris Gimenez singled to right field and Odor was almost picked off of second base after taking too big of a turn. After a replay review, the out call was upheld.
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Hanser Alberto singled to center to drive in Odor for the lead run. Gimenez and Hanser advanced on the throw to the plate and the Rangers had runners on second and third. Gimenez scored on an infield single by DeShields for a 2-run lead. Choo lined out to center field to end the inning.
Ross Ohlendorf came in to close out the game. He struck out Tulowitzki and Justin Smoak for two quick outs. Then he hit Martin with a pitch before striking out Pillar to end the game.
Player of the Game: Rougned Odor
Odor was 1 for 5 with a walk and 2 runs scored. He drew a walk and ended up scoring in the second inning without the help of a base hit. His aggressive running and creative slide manufactured that run. Then he sparked the game-winning rally in the 14th inning with a 2-out single. Two batters later, and he scored the game-winning run. He made a great play to end a Blue Jay rally in the bottom of the eighth inning as well.
ALDS Game 3 (Rangers lead 2-0)
The Rangers are bringing a two games to none lead to Game 3 on Sunday at 8 pm at the Globe Life Ballpark in Arlington. Marco Estrada will be pitching for the Blue Jays and Martin Perez will take the mound for the Rangers. Estrada led the league with an opponents’ batting average of .202. Perez has not fared well against right-handed batters, and the Blue Jays have crushed left-handed pitchers.
