ARLINGTON, Texas — First baseman Jake Burger caught a foul popup for a sacrifice fly in the sixth inning Tuesday night, and his double pump on the play let a Mets run score. The New York Mets beat the Texas Rangers 6-3 at Globe Life Field.
The run made it 5-3. Right fielder Brandon Nimmo was charged with the only Texas error, in the fourth inning.
“It’s terrible,” Burger said. “Obviously, our pitchers are giving us a chance every night, and we got to pick them up. Can’t expect to win the division when we’re playing like that, on three obviously separate occasions, in my opinion.”
“It sucks. It’s behind us, though,” Burger continued. “We got to flush it and focus on tomorrow. I don’t think that’s who we are.”
Skip Schumaker Separates Juan Soto’s Single From Two Other Misplays
The first Mets run scored on a single up the middle by Juan Soto in the third inning, a ball that got past Justin Foscue. Josh Jung tied it 1-1 with an RBI double in the bottom half.
“Even if Foscue catches that ball, I don’t think he gets Soto,” Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said. “Having said that, I do think that potentially he could have got that ball but in a dive or whatever saved it and kept it inside in the infield. It was first and third. I still think the run scores.”
“So that one’s a different play to me than the other ones,” Schumaker continued. “It probably didn’t look great, but I think the run still scores. The other two I feel like are just a little bit of communication lapses and stuff that we should be… we’ve been good at and just happened tonight, unfortunately.”
The two misplays that Schumaker grouped together both turned into Mets runs. Texas lost its second straight game and fell into a tie for first place in the American League West.
“The plays behind them, I think those… you’re used to seeing those plays made,” Schumaker explained. “I will say that. They’re really good. They play fundamentally sound. They’ve been playing fundamentally sound baseball. We made a couple miscues tonight. It cost us, and that’s part of the reason why we lost. Again, that’s why we have to flush it.”
Brandon Nimmo’s Error Came In His First Game Against The Mets
In the fourth, Carson Benge hit a ground-rule double. Francisco Alvarez later sent a ball into the gap, and it ricocheted off the heel of Nimmo’s glove as center fielder Ezequiel Duran converged. Benge scored to put New York ahead 2-1.
Tuesday was Nimmo’s first game against the Mets, who drafted him 13th overall in 2011. He played 10 big league seasons in New York before the Mets traded him to Texas last November for second baseman Marcus Semien. Nimmo finished with 2 hits, including a leadoff single in the fourth that started a two-run Texas rally.
The sixth-inning popup came off the bat of Luis Torrens, two batters after Alvarez’s two-run double gave the Mets a 4-3 lead. The Houston Astros beat Seattle 7-0 later that night, and Texas and Houston are now tied at 78-79 with Houston holding the tiebreaker.
“It’s about us and it’s about what we do out there,” Burger explained. “I don’t think we should focus on any other team other than what we did tonight. To be completely frank, it was bad showing on multiple fronts. So just flush it, move on tomorrow. We have five games left. They have [five] games left. We just go out there and play our game.”
The Rangers and Mets play again Wednesday at 7:05 p.m. CT at Globe Life Field.
