"It was just an all-around awful job," Feldman said. "Bad command cost me the most. I was not executing my pitches. It was just a frustrating night."
Feldman never did seem to find the 'feel' of his cutter, a pitch that has netted him so many soft outs throughout most of this season. The lack of touch resulted in several pitches outside of the strike zone, forcing Feldman to pull back and throw his fastball down the middle which is fine so long as his other pitches are working. When they aren't, a 90 mph fastball is little more than batting practice for MLB-caliber hitters.
"It wasn't our night tonight," Rangers manager Ron Washington said. "They came out swinging the bats and never stopped. If you play enough games, you're going to have one like this. Tonight their bats were on. They got hits, all kinds of hits: doubles, chinks, broken bats. There was nothing we could do."
Despite 2 homeruns by Andruw Jones, the offense never really got on track, managing just 8 hits on the night while striking out a season high 18 times. Tigers starter Justin Verlander was dominant for most of the game, putting in seven innings of work en route to his 12th win of the season. Even when Verlander struggled, he was always able to work his way out of the jams.
"That's what he does," Byrd said. "He comes out throwing 90-92 [mph], then he gets into trouble and he's throwing 96-100. There is a reason why he leads the world in strikeouts. When he has guys out there with runners in scoring position, he steps up his game. You have to do that as well."
Despite scoring 3 in the bottom of the 5th, Texas never got close, allowing the Tigers to score at least one run in the first 7 innings of the game, ultimately dropping the final game of the series, 13-5.
"You gotta tip your cap to their whole team," Rangers third baseman Michael Young said. "Verlander threw a great game, they had, what, 19 hits. You just gotta file it away and move on."
No comments:
Post a Comment