ARLINGTON, Texas — Chris Woodward didn’t want to put the weight of the world on starting pitcher Taylor Hearn’s shoulders, but he did need Hearn’s absolute best on Saturday night. Actually, more specifically, he needed Hearn’s absolute maximum.
From a pitch count perspective, Woodward pretty much got that from Hearn, but considering the way this season has gone so far, Woodward still needed more.
The Rangers lost to the Los Angeles Angels, 7-2, on Saturday night in a way that’s starting to make this season feel like an iteration of Groundhog Day. Hearn threw 82 pitches and allowed three runs in 3 2/3 innings before Woodward called on the bullpen for the rest of the game — a group that owns the most bullpen innings per game in the league with over five a game. The five Rangers bullpen arms allowed four runs, including two home runs.
Through eight games, the Rangers’ bullpen has allowed 11 home runs. And through eight games, the bullpen has thrown 42 2/3 innings, while the starters for the Rangers have combined for 27 1/3 innings.
Groundhog Day? Maybe another title would be more appropriate.
“We have arms,” Woodward said of the bullpen, alluding to the 12 players currently in it, “but they’re just getting taxed, because we’re basically having to go bullpen day every day.”
It’s only eight games into the season, but there are multiple reasons why the Rangers now find themselves in this overused bullpen predicament.
The lockout and a shortened spring training didn’t help. Because of less work in spring, starters are still working up to their maximum production. So far, no Rangers starter has pitched more than five innings, and Dane Dunning is the only pitcher to meet that mark.
Blisters haven’t helped, either. Opening-day starter Jon Gray went on the 10-day injured list with a blister after his first start. He’s on path to start Tuesday in Seattle, Woodward said. Fellow starter Spencer Howard also went on the injured list with a blister, but he was throwing in pregame on Saturday and could return Thursday in Seattle.
With two starters out, the Rangers had to use a true bullpen day on Friday with the hope that reliever Kolby Allard could go multiple innings. Allard instead allowed five runs in 1 1/3 innings of work, forcing Woodward to go to his bullpen earlier than he hoped.
The baton of responsibility was then passed to Hearn on Saturday, but a 34-pitch third inning doomed any realistic chance of Hearn going as deep as Woodward might’ve needed to give the relievers some relief.
“I was just trying to make sure I go as deep as I can,” Hearn said. “Especially in that third inning, I was just trying to stop them when they scored one or two runs. Other than that, I just couldn’t put them away — plain and simple, but I stuck in there and battled. You have to admit: that’s a really good lineup over there.”
Hearn’s short outing, in terms, of innings, led to a second-straight appearance for Greg Holland, who surrendered a home run to Shohei Ohtani — his third in two days. It also meant that Matt Moore — called up from Triple-A Round Rock on Saturday for Josh Sborz, who went on the IL with right elbow soreness — may have had to go longer than the Rangers would’ve hoped, leading to an additional run.
“We’ve been plagued by that,” Woodward said of the overused bullpen. “Listen, we’re only eight games in, but it’s causing us to have a 2-6 record, instead of something better than that.”
Gray and Patton are on the mend, and with each turn of the rotation, Woodward expects the starters to build up their workload. Still, in order to remedy the bullpen usage issue, Woodward also pointed to a simple solution.
“We need somebody to step up,” Woodward said, “and in a lot of ways I think Martín Pérez might be the perfect guy to do that … hopefully he can go out there and right the ship.”
And put an end to Bullpen Day, the movie.
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Noah Syndergaard has been in the major leagues since 2015. The former All-Star, nicknamed Thor for his Marvel lookalike, has appeared in 122 games over that span. He had never pitched in an MLB game in his home state of Texas, though, until Saturday.
The former Mansfield Legacy star got the start for the Angels and pitched well, going six innings and allowing two runs on five hits. He also had four strikeouts.
Syndergaard had been looking forward to starting against the Rangers for a while. He even told The Orange County Register that he had “anxiety just thinking about it,” prior to the start, knowing what it meant for him to pitch in front of friends and family about 20 miles from his hometown.
In the first inning, he recorded three outs on five pitches, including a three-pitch strikeout of Corey Seager. It was hard to tell if there was any anxiety affecting him at all.
