ARLINGTON, Texas — Texas Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said Jacob Latz is still the club’s best reliever after Latz gave up a three-run home run to Jonathan Aranda in the 10th inning of Saturday’s 6-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays at Globe Life Field.
The homer came on a pitch Aranda can handle, Schumaker said after the game, and it is not something that has happened to Latz often.
“Jacob Latz is our best closer, best reliever, All-Star,” Schumaker said. “Just made a pitch that Aranda can hit and can handle. And unfortunately, went out of the ballpark. It’s very rare that it’s happened to him. But it’s part of the game. But that’s just a tough loss, quite honestly. We fought back against a really good pitcher. We had our chances with runners in scoring position, with our big guys up, and just couldn’t knock them in.”
What Happened In The 10th Inning
Latz was working his second inning when Taylor Walls opened the 10th with a sacrifice bunt that moved automatic runner Jorge Mateo to third. Latz intentionally walked Yandy Díaz. Aranda then hit a 1-2 slider a Statcast-projected 409 feet to right-center field.
It was Latz’s first loss since April 10 at the Los Angeles Dodgers. He fell to 3-2.
Between those two losses, the Rangers went 40-3 in his 43 appearances, according to Kennedi Landry of MLB.com. Latz posted a 1.76 ERA over that stretch with 3 wins and 28 saves.
Texas had its chances against Drew Rasmussen with runners in scoring position and its big hitters up, Schumaker said, and did not cash them in. The plan for the 10th did not depend on the score.
“We are doing whatever we can to win,” Schumaker explained. “If you look at the game tonight, we threw out our best pitchers. Latz was going to go out, if we were down one, he was going to go out to try to just keep it at one to see if we could come back against their back-end bullpen.”
How Jacob Latz Became The Texas Rangers’ Closer
Latz came into the weekend with 28 saves and a 1.63 ERA over 49 appearances. He was an All-Star in July.
None of that was the plan in March. Latz spent spring training competing with Kumar Rocker for the fifth starter job. In his last Cactus League start, on March 19 against Milwaukee, he gave up 7 earned runs on 8 hits and 2 walks in 3 2/3 innings, according to Shawn McFarland of The Dallas Morning News. His fastball sat 94-96 mph in the first inning and had dropped to 90-91 by the fourth.
Rocker won the job. Two games into the season, deGrom’s neck stiffened, and Latz made his first appearance of the year in the rotation anyway, per McFarland.
His first save came April 25 against the Athletics, a perfect ninth. On June 1 in St. Louis, he converted saves on back-to-back days for the first time in his career. Through the first half, Schumaker would not call him the closer.
“He’s our highest-leverage reliever, and yeah, he’s going to get the chance to close a lot of games because he’s got real pitches for righties and lefties,” Schumaker told The Dallas Morning News in June.
A year earlier, Latz had posted a 2.84 ERA across 85 2/3 innings while bouncing between the rotation and the bullpen.
Jacob Latz On Turning The Page
Latz said the moments feel bigger now than they did at the start of the year.
“They all sting, of course,” Latz told Landry. “Everyone feels the moments now a little bit more than at the beginning of the year. That’s just the nature of the time. For me personally, I have a new opportunity tomorrow, so try to right the ship and turn the page as quickly as we can. It sucks because we’ve been fighting hard the last couple games, especially. To be on the wrong side of things hurts. But there’s still baseball left, and we have to keep going.”
That opportunity comes Sunday afternoon, if the game gets to him. Left-hander MacKenzie Gore (8-10, 4.31 ERA) starts the series finale for Texas against Rays left-hander Ian Seymour (9-6, 4.21). First pitch is 2:35 p.m. CT on Rangers Sports Network.
The Rangers are 70-73, 3 games behind Houston in the American League West and 2 behind Cleveland and Toronto for the third wild card, with 19 games left.
