It did not take long for the Texas Rangers to put its fans on a roller coaster to kick off the season. Opening Day was full of good and bad debuts for the Rangers. In a 162 game season, take the win and move on.

The $185,000,000 arm of Jacob deGrom made his debut for Texas in what turned out to be an up and down game. He started the game dealing against the Phillies with two strikeouts and the 1st being against red hot Trea Turner off the World Baseball Classic. deGrom looked to be locked in until the 2nd inning when Alec Bohm hit a bomb making the game 2-0 Philadelphia. He then allowed two triples in a row followed by two doubles making the game 4-0 Philadelphia. This was about when it looked like the games was spiraling out of deGrom’s control. The Phillies batters were painting the right field grass with every hit. Jacob deGrom could not make it out of the 4th inning allowing 5 earned runs with 7 strikeouts with the crowd booing in the background.

The Globe Life Field retractable roof began to close and the game immediately changed. The Texas Rangers’ offense exploded led by the debut of Robbie Grossman. Grossman crushed a three run homer to tie the game 5-5 and the crowd went wild! The Rangers ended the 4th inning after scoring 4 more runs taking the lead from the Phillies 9-5. Once the Rangers went down 5 runs I could not stop slandering the Texas offense. I’m glad they proved me wrong. The science of sports slander is undefeated (DDSN has tested this theory many times).

This best part of this game was the Rangers’ bullpen slamming the door shut on the Phillies. RP Brock Burke allowed 1 earned run but looked great in 2 innings of work. Hernandez allowed 1 earned run except it was mainly due to a miss read in center field by Bubba Thompson. Then, José Leclerc came into the game and slammed the door to secure the Texas Rangers’ 1st win of the season.

The most impressive performance for Texas in my opinion was the offense finally firing on all cylinders. Semien and Seager leading the lineup created the spark every one behind them needed. There was also very smart baserunning by Josh Smith and Marcus Semien to score runs. Out of the bullpen Brock Burke and the rest of the bullpen had great games. The rollercoaster of Texas’ Opening Day game ended with the Rangers winning and fans could not ask for much more than that.