Taxed 'pen costs Texas in frustrating finale

NEW YORK -- One thing can be said about the Rangers’ bullpen: The relievers are overworked. Two of them -- Grant Anderson and Joe Barlow -- were given a day of rest, and it came back to haunt Texas in its 5-3 loss to New York on Sunday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.

Rangers manager Bruce Bochy was forced to use a couple of relievers who were not experienced in high-leverage situations. Texas had a 3-2 lead going into the bottom of the eighth, but the team found itself behind the eight ball when the inning ended.

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Left-hander John King put runners on first and second and got just one out before exiting the game. King believed his biggest mistake was allowing a leadoff double to Anthony Volpe.

“The only mistake was throwing Volpe three straight fastballs. I should have changed it up,” King said. “The changeup is my second-best pitch. It’s tough to swallow. I can take [the infield hit by Jose Trevino]. Just the one to Volpe. I would love to have a better pitch.”

Right-hander Yerry Rodríguez, a ground-ball pitcher with a power fastball and slider, replaced King. But Rodríguez kept the ball up and was hit hard, allowing a two-run double to Harrison Bader and an RBI single to Giancarlo Stanton to give New York a two-run lead.

Texas’ bullpen has 15 losses this season and an ERA of 4.31, fourth worst in the American League. Asked if the bullpen needed tweaking, Bochy said, “No. … Any time you lose a game like this, that question is going to get asked.”

In what was set up to be a pitchers’ duel between right-handers Nathan Eovaldi and Gerrit Cole, Eovaldi had the upper hand.

Eovaldi found himself grinding in the early going. Given a 3-0 lead after the top of the second, Eovaldi allowed the first three hitters to reach in the bottom half. The biggest blow came when DJ LeMahieu doubled to right-center field, scoring Stanton and Jake Bauers.

Eovaldi felt he overused his splitter early in the game.

“That second inning was frustrating because we were able to put up the runs, and I had that leadoff walk [to Stanton],” Eovaldi said. “You know how I am about those little things. I felt I allowed them to get back in the game.”

However, Eovaldi settled down. After LeMahieu’s double, Eovaldi faced the minimum until Bader’s one-out double in the sixth. Following Anthony Rizzo’s groundout, which moved Bader to third, right-hander Josh Sborz entered and struck out Stanton.

“[Eovaldi] pitched well,” Bochy said. “He gave up two and bounced back. There he was in the sixth. It was humid out there. It was hot. A nice job by Nate. This was not an easy place to pitch. He did his job with a one-run lead.”

Said Eovaldi, “I felt the outing went well, and I felt strong all the way though.”

The Rangers’ offense made Cole grind throughout his 4 2/3 innings on 107 pitches. Texas scored its three runs in the first two innings.

In the first, Marcus Semien hit a leadoff double and Corey Seager drove him in with a single to center field.

Jonah Heim led off the second with a Statcast-projected 418-foot home run into the second deck in right-center. Ezequiel Duran then scored on Leody Taveras’ one-out double to make it a three-run game.

“We had some great at-bats off Cole. We worked him hard. We got him out early. We didn’t get quite rewarded enough,” Bochy said.

But throughout the weekend series, the Rangers couldn’t get the big hit. They were 7-for-30 (.233) with runners in scoring position and left 30 runners on base in the three games.

“The Yankees made pitches,” Bochy said. “We have the runners out there. They are doing a great job with that. We are missing that one more hit to give us a little margin for error. Our bullpen was a little short today, but you would like to get another hit there to have a two- or three-run lead. You keep it close, anything could happen. You saw what happened. It’s a tough one.”