ARLINGTON, Texas — Baseball, conventionally, isn’t an instant gratification sport. It’s a long season; a grind that’s glorified. It’s 162 games, and after Friday night’s series-opening loss to the Atlanta Braves, the Rangers were only 20 games through it.
As Rangers manager Chris Woodward would later put it, a 6-14 record in that span wasn’t time to abandon ship, but it was time to turn it around.
So Woodward, searching for a spark, made a promise on Friday night: the next day’s lineup would have some changes.
The changes brought instant gratification. The buttons pushed in between Friday’s loss and Saturday’s first pitch were the right ones.
“They were easy buttons to push,” Woodward said.
The Rangers snapped a four-game losing streak with a 3-1 win over the Braves on Saturday. Catcher Sam Huff, added while Jonah Heim was on paternity leave, got the start and had a RBI single. Left fielder Zach Reks, brought up in place of optioned starting pitcher Spencer Howard, also had a RBI — a line drive single for his first MLB hit.
Saturday’s game also marked a change in how the Rangers used their starting pitchers. For the first month of the season, the Rangers have had a plan to ease their starters into longer innings after a shortened spring. They were committed to it, but Woodward recently expressed the urge to let his starters go longer.
Dane Dunning did exactly that. He threw 7 2/3 innings — the longest start of his career and the longest start of the season for the Rangers — and allowed three hits and one run. He left with two outs in the eighth, but Dennis Santana came on and forced a groundout from Ronald Acuña Jr. Joe Barlow had a perfect ninth for the save.
Dunning said Saturday’s start felt like a weight off his shoulders. That’s because he’s been on a pitching lease pretty much for the entirety of his Rangers career up to this point after undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2019. Dunning even said that he meant to talk with Woodward before the start of the eighth inning and let him know that he’d be willing to go even deeper than he ultimately went, but the bottom of the seventh was short and he didn’t have a chance to talk to his manager.
“I think that’s probably my conversation with him every time: just me begging for more innings,” Dunning said with a chuckle, referring to his consistent push for longer starts.
Woodward said Dunning’s performance set the tone for Saturday’s win. He struck out five of the first six batters he faced. Woodward added that was the best he’s seen Dunning pitch.
“Frankly we needed that,” Woodward said.
The Rangers also needed someone to set the tone from an offensive standpoint, too. They entered Saturday’s game with a streak of 19-consecutive first innings without a run. Opening day in Toronto was the last time it had happened.
So, Woodward went slightly unconventional. Nathaniel Lowe had never batted leadoff before, but Woodward put him at the top of the lineup. Lowe went hitless on Saturday, but the Rangers did score in the first inning when Corey Seager hit a solo home run to left field. It was his third straight game with a solo home run.
“He smoked that,” Woodward said.
If Dunning set the tone on the mound, Seager set it at the plate.
“Anytime you have a lead, you feel better,” Woodward said.
And that’s a change the Rangers needed.
