Ariel Jurado and Rangers mow down Angels bats, spoiling Keynan Middleton’s return

Rangers 3, Angels 0

No Mike Trout (a foot injury). A weak Rangers bulk guy in Ariel Jurado. No giveaways to rally up the crowd. The stage was already set for the Angels to get blown away (blown away!) Wednesday night.

Patrick Sandoval pitched well, but it’s a problem when the only thing your team’s official Twitter account tweets is about the pitcher...

...with a 0/10 caption to boot. Oh well. They’ll figure it out someday.

Meanwhile, over on the Rangers Twitter page, they had fun home run robberies...

...that’s Mike Trout’s section! You don’t go there, Delino!

A solid single...

...and a solid double.

Patrick Sandoval tallied five scoreless innings, allowing just one hit (three walks) while striking out nine, but pitchers cannot win the game if the hitters don’t score any runs for them. (Hence, the win is a meaningless stat, but we’ll figure that out later. A slew of six bullpen guys came in to relieve Sandoval, including the return of Keynan Middleton, who, as you saw above, promptly gave up the game-winning RBI to Nick Solak. Cam Bedrosian did Cam Bedrosian things, and the game was effectively out of reach.

On the other side, Ariel Jurado (he of the 5+ ERA) was extremely unhittable over six innings. Although he only struck out one Angel, he somehow allowed just two hits, as the Angels were unable to get a beat on him the entire night. They managed just three hits overall, and the team from Anaheim falls to 4th in the AL West. Good riddance.