Astros Pillage Rangers Bullpen, Romp Through Nine-Run Inning

The Rangers started the sixth inning with Jeremy Jeffress on the mound. Two home runs, a single and a hit by pitch later, he was replaced by Tony Barnette. Two walks and two singles later, he was replaced by Dillon Gee. It was only then, after allowing five runs, that the Rangers finally managed to record their first two outs of the inning with a double play.

Things got marginally better for Texas from there, in that they decided they had neither sufficient desire to stanch the bleeding nor sufficient bullpen depth to make any more pitching changes, and they eventually recorded another out to put them out of their misery. But it wasn’t pretty. Before he could record the final out of the inning, Gee allowed a single, a hit by pitch and a double. That made a total of nine runs for the inning, from 13 plate appearances.

Among those was the first major-league hit—and first major-league home run—for Derek Fisher, who received his call-up today: 

They entered the eighth inning with a 13-2 lead. All hail this Astros offense.