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The outing for Texas left-hander Wandy Rodriguez was a quick one Wednesday night against Oakland.
And it was a painful one in many ways.
Painful to his ERA, which jumped from 3.20 to 4.06. Painful to second-base umpire Dale Scott, who took one of the many hard liners hit off Lawrie off his left leg in the fourth inning and was forced to leave the game with a left thigh bruise. And very painful to the Rangers, who were never in the game after Rodriguez allowed five runs in the first inning in what turned into an 8-2 Oakland rout.
The loss was the fourth straight for the Rangers, which matches a season high.
Rodriguez served up a first-inning grand slam to Brett Lawrie and then a two-run homer to Josh Phegley in the second. Rodriguez did manage to pitch two more innings but left after throwing 94 pitches in four innings and allowing 11 hits and walking three batters.
"I had a big problem with my location today," Rodriguez said. "A lot of breaking balls hanging and my fastball too. I had very little control with all my pitches. I tried to throw hard but I didn't feel good with my speed. I felt it all day in my bullpen and in the game too."
Rodriguez had allowed five earned runs over his last three starts but was never in the game. He gave up a double to Billy Burns to open a first inning that included consecutive four-pitch walks before Lawrie's slam.
While some of the calls on the walks seemed close, Rodriguez didn't use that as an excuse for his outing. He said he just made bad pitches.
The eight runs were the most Rodriguez has allowed in a start since he gave up nine on June 2, 2012, when he was pitching for Houston. The loss also snapped a six-game winning streak for the Rangers in games started by Rodriguez.
Manager Jeff Banister has confidence the veteran can bounce back.
"This is the first time he's thrown a shoe really," Banister said. "Before tonight I thought Wandy had competed really well and given us competitive outings, moved the fastball around and used the breaking ball, really veteran outings for us. It's a tough one but we'll move on from it. I'm sure Wandy will erase this one from his memory bank."
The only saving grace for the Rangers Wednesday was the pitching of reliever Anthony Bass. The Rangers had just a six-man bullpen going into the game and Bass saved them extra work by following Rodriguez with four innings of shutout relief on just two hits.
Despite trailing 8-0 the work of Bass did give the Rangers offense a chance to come back. They scored two runs in the fifth and were in position for move before Rougned Odor was called out on a close play at second base to end the inning. Banister asked for a replay on the call, which stood on review.
While that as a big play at the time Banister said there were plenty of others.
"The walks, the grand slam, not being able to drive runs in, not being able to mount anything offensively prior too, early outs, they all go into the same bucket really," Banister said. "They're all equally as important."
