Bradford, Rangers 'a little sloppy' in series finale defeat

CLEVELAND -- Cody Bradford had never committed an error in his short big league career before Sunday afternoon.

But after allowing a leadoff walk to Steven Kwan to begin his outing against the Guardians, Bradford threw a potential double play ball into the dirt well past second baseman Marcus Semien, putting runners on the corners with no outs.

Kwan would come around to score on a sacrifice fly before Bradford got out of the inning relatively unscathed. Things got better for Bradford from there, as the 26-year-old tossed another quality start, but he was dinged with the loss as the Rangers fell, 4-2, to the Guardians at Progressive Field.

“Cleveland's a really good ballclub,” Bradford said. “We knew we had to play really good ball coming in, and today it was, at least for myself, I felt a little sloppy. In the first inning, walking the leadoff guy, it's not ideal. Then you get your ground ball double play and you boot it. That’s not how you want to start a game. When you find yourself down, 1-0, in the bottom of the first, it’s a tough place to be.”

Bradford wasn’t the only one though. Of the Guardians’ four runs, only two were earned. The Rangers pulled to within one run on two separate occasions in the loss, but another error was just as consequential as Bradford’s own.

José Leclerc relieved Bradford in the seventh inning and struck out leadoff hitter Jhonkensy Noel on a wild pitch that allowed him to reach first. Noel moved to third after a sac bunt and a single and then scored on a throwing error by Leclerc on a failed pickoff attempt.

Without those two errors on the pitchers, the Rangers would have potentially been in a tie game instead of playing from behind all day.

“It probably was our worst game fundamentally,” said manager Bruce Bochy. “We just did not execute today with the fundamentals. It did catch up with us. We just made quite a few mistakes, and in close games, that's going to catch up with you, especially against a team with this type of pitching.

“If you don't score a lot of runs, you need to play clean baseball. … We didn't play good, clean baseball. This is what bothers a manager more than anything. We're good fundamentally, but we had an off day.”

Progressive Field has been a house of horrors of sorts for the Rangers in recent seasons. Facing Cleveland alone has its own set of difficulties.

The Rangers are now 2-7 in their last nine games against the Guardians and 14-30 in 43 games against them since the start of 2017. That’s their lowest win percentage against any AL club over that span. Texas has also lost 10 of its last 13 games at Progressive Field. Its last series win in Cleveland came from May 30-June 1, 2016.

“You know what, they do a good job fundamentally,” Bochy said of the struggles against Cleveland in particular. “They're athletic. They run and find ways to score runs. But I'll say this, Bradford had a rough outing here last year. What a job he did today. We got off to a good start this week. You think you have a really, really good chance of taking the series, and this was disappointing to get the kind of pitching we had today and we just got shut down.”

A lot of what the Rangers will do down the stretch here does come back to Bradford, a homegrown starting pitcher who has become a quality big leaguer over the last two seasons. Bradford was the Rangers’ best starter when he landed on the injured list on April 11. He’s been the best since he returned around the Trade Deadline as well.

He had a 1.40 ERA in three starts before landing on the injured list with nagging back/rib issues that lasted months longer than expected. In those 19 1/3 innings before the injury, he was holding opposing batters to a .145/.169/.203 slash line.

The 26-year-old barely missed a step in his return. He allowed five runs in his first appearance back, which was two innings of relief in a pinch against the Cardinals in St. Louis. He has three quality starts and another five innings of one-run ball since then.

“He hadn't grown, he's already a man,” Bochy said. “The way he competes, the way he prepares, the maniacal focus he has out there. He's such a mature young man, and didn't get rattled after he threw the ball away. He settled down against a scrappy team. That just shows you his makeup, and his fortitude.”