Wyatt Langford also whacked a three-run home run in the Rangers’ Cactus League win over the Athletics.
Texas Rangers pitcher Jack Leiter delivers during the first inning of a spring training game against the Los Angeles Angels on Monday, Feb. 23, 2026, in Tempe, Ariz.In a 7-6 Rangers win, each of the first 10 A’s, who didn’t send a lineup chock full of their talented young hitters across the valley, swung at the first pitch of their at-bats against Leiter.
In all, 16 of the 19 batters he faced offered at the first pitch. On the positive side, he was throwing strikes. Then again, maybe he didn’t need to do so quite as often against a team as aggressive as Oakland, er, Sacramento. “It was a learning outing,” said Leiter, who ended up finishing five innings, then needed to throw another 13 in the bullpen to reach his 70-pitch goal. “They came in with the approach to be on the fastball, it seemed. And be on it early. The goal is always to get ahead. But everything I threw in the zone was getting hit hard early. So, obviously, it’s about just making an adjustment mid inning, mid-at-bat. I have to stay on the attack, but be a little more unpredictable.” Leiter gave up five hits and, not surprisingly, considering the A’s approach, no walks. Two of the hits were bases-empty homers to Max Muncy and Henry Bolte. Not too make too much of spring training homers, based on the hitter-friendly conditions, but Leiter has allowed five homers in his 10 innings. He allowed 18 in 151 innings last year., they took three walks in the second inning against A’s starter J.T. Ginn. Discipline. They almost let a bases-loaded situation go to waste when Willie MacIver hit a high fly to left field, but Colby Thomas lost it in the sun and it dropped for a bases-clearing double.The Rangers made the mistake sting even more when Brandon Nimmo took the third walk of the inning and Wyatt Langford crushed a changeup over the heart of the plate for a three-run homer. The Rangers have put up innings of three or more runs in the first three innings of three of their last four games.— That said, the Rangers showed they can still be wasteful, too. They had a chance for another big inning in the third after an infield single by Jake Burger and walk by Joc Pederson, but Evan Carter, Josh Smith and Ezequiel Duran made three quick outs on four pitches, none of them in typical “nitro” zones., who’d been charged with one run in six innings, struggled with command, which has been his primary issue. He walked two in the seventh inning, threw 25 pitches and could not finish his inning of work. Collyer, who has pitched just 16 innings about Double-A,Texas Rangers finalizing contract with veteran lefty bullpen candidateEvan has covered the Rangers since 1997. He has twice been named one of the top 10 beat writers in the country by the AP Sports Editors. His passions outside of covering baseball are his wife, Gina, his two step kids, two crazy dogs & barbecue. Let's not discuss the cat. Evan graduated from Georgia State University, but oddly is a Georgia fan.Dallas officials feared WFAA-TV would leave downtown over parking dispute, emails show
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