San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Paredes homers twice as Tampa rolls in opener
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — There is this Spider-Man meme. It comes from the 1960s animated series. Two Spider-Men are pointing at each other. It’s the internet’s way of saying: Twinsies.
The Rangers-Rays series shaped up that way, too. Two teams with nearly identical records, standing atop all of MLB in winloss records and most pertinent stats. Sharp starting pitching. Crisp defense. Tough outs. They were so similar right down to a Lowe brother apiece — Nathaniel for the Rangers, Josh for Tampa Bay. It was like looking in a mirror for the Rangers.
Except memes and mirrors don’t punch back.
Everything the Rangers have done so well on the way to the best start in franchise history, the Rays did better Friday. When Round 1 was over, the Rays had a dominant 8-3 win. They also left a little note: Tiptoe around Randy Arozarena at your own risk.
The Rangers did that all night and the next man up, Isaac Paredes, torched them with two homers and six RBIs over the first six innings. He delivered run-scoring, two-out, two-strike hits in each of his first two at-bats after the Rangers walked Arozarena ahead of him.
“That’s why they are a good team; that’s why they put up a lot of runs, too,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said. “They make you throw strikes. And they take advantage.”
That’s supposed to be the Rangers’ game. The Rangers entered the game leading the majors in OPS with two strikes (.607), in
OPS with two outs (.788) and OPS with runners in scoring position (.934). But Tampa Bay ranked in the top five in all three categories, too.
The Rays sent the message early, taking advantage of the smallest opportunity to score a run. Harold Ramirez reached on a two-out error charged to Marcus Semien, the bestfielding second baseman in the league. The softly hit ground ball had kicked off starter Andrew Heaney’s glove and spun as Semien tried to pick it. He couldn’t get a clean grip on the ball and the inning was extended.
Arozarena took a fivepitch walk, and then Paredes delivered a runscoring
double just inside the third base line on a 2-2 slider that Heaney got down in the zone, but not far enough.
Two innings later, after a double-play ball, another mistake with Ramirez at the plate and another walk to Arozarena set the table for Paredes. Ramirez doubled on a ball Leody Taveras lost against the white roof of Tropicana Field. He played it well off the wall but said later he should have caught it. After Arozarena walked. Heaney left an 0-2 four seam fastball to Paredes up. It was high, but not high enough. It ended up in the left-field seats.
“That’s a little frustrating,” Heaney said afterwards.
“I created some trouble for myself by putting traffic on the bases. They are a really good team for a reason. It’s little things in a game like this that can make a difference.
“But that was not a good pitch. I’ve got all the room in the world to miss, and it just caught too much of the plate.”
Bochy said the Rangers were not trying to pitch around Arozarena, who delivered a walk-off homer against Minnesota on Wednesday.
“He’s trying to get him out,” Bochy said. “That’s a deep lineup. They can do that. It happens. But we weren’t pitching around him. I think just one pitch
kept it from being a really nice game. He’d like that pitch back. But that’s why they are good.”
If the first four innings were evidence enough that if Arozarena doesn’t hurt you, Paredes will, then there was Spencer Howard. He was making his first 2023 appearance as the Rangers’ Next Bullpen Option and, well, it was a clunker. He began by hitting Arozarena, then fell behind Paredes 3and-1 before trying a fastball that was middle in. Paredes drove it, too, into the left-field seats.
It was that kind of night for the Rangers. They faced a team just like them and it’s like it stunned them. They kept making the same mistakes over and over.
Not a great way to start a stretch of 10 consecutive games against teams that began Friday at or above .500. That’s the one test the Rangers haven’t fully passed yet. They had gone 14-10 against such teams entering the game but had played the fewest games against such teams in the majors.
“I don’t know how much more we [need to] be tested,” Bochy said of his team prior to the game. “I think we’ve already handled a lot. They are a good team with a good record. I believe we are, too.”
Yep, before the game, everything looked almost identical
Afterwards: Not as much.