When Dee Gordon went yard on the first pitch of the Marlins-Rangers game in Arlington Wednesday, Texas starter Yu Darvish was not discouraged. The 30 year-old from Japan has fallen behind a few times in his five years in the MLB.
If things looked a little more grim to Darvish after Christian Yelich went long just one batter later, he didn’t show it. At least, not right away.
He bounced back to throw back-to-back shutout frames in the second and third innings.
“The first three innings,” he said later, per an Associated Press report on Foxsports.com, “I…felt pretty good. I thought I had the stuff to do it with.”
There was quite a bit at stake for Darvish: Wednesday was his last start before the trade deadline, and rumor has it the Rangers are looking to make a move involving him.
Now, they might have trouble finding takers: when Darvish took the mound in the top of the fourth, the wheels came off in record-setting fashion.
The Marlins sent thirteen men to the plate that inning, nine of whom scored. Ichiro Suzuki started the scoring with a ground rule double over the center field fence, which scored Marcell Ozuna, who had led the inning off with a double. Then, Derek Dietrich picked up two RBIs on a single to center; Giancarlo Stanton drove Dietrich home with a single; Ozuna plated three runs with a triple to center.
That was enough to chase Darvish, but the Marlins weren’t done scoring.
J.T. Realmuto capped off the Marlins’ with a two-run home run off of Jeremy Jefress, who came in to relieve Darvish. Ozuna scored his second run of the inning. It was charged to Darvish, who had given up a career-worst 10 earned runs in just 3 2/3 innings.
“I got to the fourth inning and I couldn’t locate my pitches,” Darvish said.
Jefferies settled down in the fifth and sixth, retiring six of seven Marlins.
No other Texas pitcher had much luck recording outs, though. Austin Bibens-Dirx yielded a leadoff walk to Suzuki in the top of the seventh, which was followed by a triple off the bat of Tomas Telis (scoring Suzuki), and an RBI single from Mike Aviles.
Giancarlo Stanton led off the eighth with his league-leading 33rd long ball of the year. Jason Grilli, who had relieved Bibens-Dirx to start the inning, continued on to yield a double and two walks before he was replaced by Jose Leclerc. Dietrich picked up his third and fourth RBIs of the game on a double to right-center. A wild pitch plated Suzuki, whom Bibens-Dirks had walked. Aviles scored Dietrich with a single to left.
Out of ideas, or just tired of trying, Rangers manager Jeff Banister sent backup catcher Brett Nicholas to the mound for the top of the ninth. One pitch from Nicholas registered just 45 mph on the radar gun. Ozuna recorded his fifth RBI of the game on a double to center; he scored his fourth run on a double from J.T. Realmuto. Dietrich scored Realmuto on a deep sac fly to center, his fifth RBI of the game.
When everyone took a breath and looked up at the scoreboard, the Marlins had recorded 22 runs, a franchise record. Nine of those runs came in the fourth inning, the Miami half of which lasted for more than half an hour, according to the AP. All nine of Miami’s starting hitters had at least one RBI; Dietrich and Ozuna led the way with five a piece. Every Marlins starter, aside from Aviles, scored at least a run; Ozuna, along with Yelich, led in that category as well, with four runs.
Meanwhile, the Rangers put up ten runs of their own. Five Rangers hitters picked up RBIs.
Two of those RBIs belonged to Adrian Beltre, who went 3-3 with a home run, two doubles, and the aforementioned two RBIs, recording his 2994th, 2995th, and 2996th career hits.
In the top of the eighth, Beltre was ejected on what Marlins’ pitcher Drew Steckenrider, who was on the mound at the time, called “one of the funniest things he’s ever seen on a baseball field,” per the Associated Press.
When crew chief Gerry Davis, who was stationed at second base for the night, “motioned for Beltre to get closer to the on-deck circle,” the AP reports, “Beltre instead dragged the large plastic mat marking the circle closer to him.”
“I tell Gerry I have no problem, but I didn’t want to get hit,” Beltre said. “I’ve been hit standing over there. He said I don’t care and you need to be on top of the mat. I wasn’t being funny. He told me to stand on the mat so I pulled the mat where I was. … I actually did what he told me.”
Banister was ejected for protesting Davis’ ruling. “Standing in the same spot that he’s stood for as long as I’ve been here. … Look liked to me that they crew chief didn’t want him standing there anymore,” said Banister. “The man’s chasing 3,000, our fans stuck around to see that last at-bat, they didn’t get to see it.”
The crowd did see a spectacle of a game, however, even if the home team was on the losing end. The 32 combined runs scored by the Rangers and the Marlins make Wednesday’s game the highest-scoring affair of the season to date.
