The Texas Rangers got the better of Alex Bregman and the Houston Astros to the tune of an 8-4 score Wednesday to even up the three-game series at Minute Maid Park. It took a bold managerial decision from Chris Woodward to ensure the Astros didn't steal a win in the bottom of the 10th after the Rangers put up five runs in the top of the same frame, as noted by Richard Justice of Texas Monthly.
“Rangers manager Chris Woodward opened the bottom of the 10th by having Jonathan Hernandez intentionally balk to move Alex Bregman from second base to third and prevent him from signaling pitch location.”
Woodward's decision goes all the way back to Tuesday's series-opening 7-5 loss to the Astros in which the Rangers believed that Bregman was trying to signal the locations of Martin Perez's pitches, though, Woodward said that it's “not cheating“, per Justice. In that game, Perez was blown out by the Astros for seven runs on six hits while also collecting three free passes and only getting struck out a total of two times in just five innings of work. For what it's worth, Perez embarrassed the Astros the first time he met them this season back on May 20, when he threw a complete-game shutout, allowing zero runs and eight hits while fanning five hitters on 108 pitches.
“They're really good at doing a lot of things,” Woodward said of Bregman and the Astros. “Just wanted to kind of avoid that. And that's not cheating. At that point, obviously, with a (five-run) lead, we were going to do it.”
Trying to intercept signals in the big leagues is as old as baseball itself, but it inspires a different kind of imagination when it's the Astros who are involved. It was not that too long ago when an MLB investigation uncovered a systematic form of sign-stealing that put Houston and the MLB in controversy.
The Rangers and the Astros will look to win the last game of the series on Thursday. They're scheduled to play two more sets before the end of the 2022 MLB regular season.
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