Rangers Lose Second Straight to Brewers

August 19, 2023

Brewers 6, Rangers 1

ARLINGTON, Tex. (Aug 19) — The Texas Rangers lost the middle game in their series against the NL Central-leading Milwaukee Brewers, 6–1, Saturday afternoon. Nothing really jelled for the Rangers in this one, aside from an RBI groundout by Leody Taveras. They hope to avoid the sweep in the series finale against the Brewers on Sunday afternoon. First pitch is scheduled for 1:35 pm Central at Globe Life Field. It will be a matchup of righties as Adrian Houser (4–4, 4.43 ERA) will get the ball for the Brewers, and Max Scherzer (12–4, 3.67 ERA) will make the start for the Rangers.

Uninspired Baseball

Much like Friday’s loss, the Rangers looked very sluggish out there in this one. With two outs in the top of the first, Carlos Santana took Rangers starter Dane Dunning deep to right-center to give the Brewers a 1–0 lead. They made it 2–0 in the top of the third on a single to left by Willy Adames that scored Santana. The Rangers got one back in their half of the third. With Brewers righty Freddy Peralta on the mound, Taveras drove in Travis Jankowski by grounding into a 6–4 force out.

The Brewers extended their lead to 3–1 in the top of the sixth. This came courtesy of a homer to right-center by Adames. At this point, Rangers manager Bruce Bochy had seen enough, slowly walking out to the mound to take the ball from Dunning. Lefty Martin Perez was brought in to relieve him. Moments later, Andruw Monasterio hit a single to left that plated Mark Canha. Canha doubled to left prior to Monasterio’s at-bat.

The Brewers made it 5–1 in the top of the seventh. A double to left by Santana scored William Contreras, who was on second with a double of his own. The other Brewers run came on a single to left by Canha that plated Joey Wiemer.

Dunning Goes Five

Dunning took the loss after he allowed three runs, all earned, over five innings. His final line was 5 IP, 7 H, 3 R-ER, 1 BB, 4 K, 2 HR, 99 pitches/63 strikes. Dunning is still 1–1 with a 2.81 ERA, 33 strikeouts, and five walks over four starts in August. Saturday’s defeat was his second at Globe Life Field this season. He is 6–2 with a 3.39 ERA across 13 games (nine starts) in Arlington. For the Brewers, Peralta earned his 10th win, matching his career high. Peralta is 4–0 with a 1.82 ERA over his first four starts in August, including 3–0, 0.96 ERA over his last three starts with 30 strikeouts against five walks.

He produced 22 swing-and-miss strikes, the fifth time this season he has had 20+ swing-and-miss strikes in a start. It was also his fifth straight quality start and 14th quality start on the season. There was no save recorded. Brewers pitchers combined to record a season high-tying 18 strikeouts. They also matched their highest strikeout total on the road in 2023, and this was club’s first time to tally 18+ strikeouts in an Interleague contest since September 14, 2021 against the Detroit Tigers (also 18).

Postgame Comments

After the game, Bochy was asked what he saw from Dane Dunning. He said, “I think the home runs that he gave up came when he was behind in the count. That’s not really something we can read too much into. Those things happen quite often in our game. His stuff was pretty good. His pitch count caught up with him after awhile. Their guys had some long at-bats, so credit goes to them on that. For the most part though, Dane kept us in the game. We just didn’t do much offensively. You never like to have too many of these types of games in a row, but we’ll regroup and try to get them in the finale tomorrow.”

Dane Dunning also reflected on his start after the game by saying, “My command wasn’t really where I wanted it to be today. I felt like my slider was a little off. It wasn’t effective and it usually is, so I’m not really sure what happened there. The command on my changeup was pretty good, so that’s certainly a positive. You rely on your secondary pitches to keep guys off balance. Again, the slider wasn’t really working so I’m glad my changeup was at least there.”