15-Hit Day Leads Rangers to a 19-1 Blowout of the Dayton Stars

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Nick Gilmore started the hit brigade off with a bloop base knock over the second baseman’s head making way for the eventual rounding of the bases on a Ben Schooler sacrifice fly. This proved to be only the start, as Markus Neff went uncharacteristically to right field for a double. The barrage continued with a Cooper Nolte triple, Kyle Moyer double, and Noah Schleinitz single, the Rangers went into the bottom of the 1st up 5-0.

 

Hall of Famer Joe Becker toed the rubber and had an immaculate first inning going 1-2-3 ending the inning in a K which the Rangers were tricked into believing it was Joe’s 500th punchout. However, further investigation proved it was only 499 and will have to wait at least one more week for the milestone achievement.

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The Rangers did not cool down starting the top of the second. Again, three straight hits by Chris Ridl, Jaret Quinn, and Michael Seebock made way for Gilmore’s second chance of the day and was granted a free pass though, no RBI was recorded based on a wild pitch prior in the at-bat. Another string of hits by Rob Pederson and Schooler gave the Rangers a 9-0 advantage extremely early in the game. Markus came to the plate and walked allowing for Cooper to scoop up 2 RBI’s on a base hit between the short stop and third basemen. A wild pitch scored Markus as Noah walked on a 6-pitch at-bat leaving the bases loaded for Eric Becker. Eric was hit by the first pitch advancing the lead even further to 13-0. A sacrifice fly by Quinn and an error by the left fielder pushed the lead to 15-0. The inning finally came to a stop after a Seebock reach-on-error and a Gilmore groundout extending the lead to 16-0 in the bottom of the second inning.

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After two quick outs, Joe gave up his first hit of the day but made quick work of the next batter inducing a pop out to shortstop Cooper Nolte. Though this ended the day for the veteran, Joe had an incredible outing facing 7 batters in 2 innings and only throwing 15 pitches, 80% of which were strikes.

 

The top of the third came with the Stars adding a different pitcher who finally handled the Rangers very well. Aside from another Cooper Nolte hit, the Rangers were quickly up, then down.

 

Headed out to the field for his 5th appearance of the season was Kenny Owens. Kenny followed Joe's lead giving up one hit but getting out of the inning in only 4 batters, earning his 50th career strikeout.

 

Schleinitz led off the bottom of the 3rd inning reaching on an error making way for Eric Becker to smoke a ball to centerfield, scoring Noah all the way from first base. The Rangers quieted down after Eric's hit, resulting in 2 K’s and a fielders choice not capitalizing on a no out single.

 

Things got slightly more rocky for Kenny giving up a hit on the first pitch of the 4th inning. A fielder's choice advanced the runner, the runner stole third and subsequently scored on a ground ball to Cooper knocking the Rangers' lead from 17 to 16. Kenny ended his outing with a K which sent the game to the bottom of the fourth inning.

 

Rob led off with a double that hit off the right field fence. Then, in an odd turn of events, Coach Gilmore sent Joe Becker to second to run for Rob, as Rob would toe the mound for his first appearance of this season. Uneventful aside from reaching on error from Cooper which scored Joe, the Rangers took the field with the 2021 MVP Rob Pederson on the mound. Rob doing Rob things, he got out of the inning facing only 4 batters and striking out one. This was Rob’s second MVABL pitching appearance. With the run-rule in effect, the game ended early with a Ranger W 19-1.

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