ARLINGTON -- It almost felt like déjà vu watching Rangers manager Bruce Bochy walk to the mound to get starter Andrew Heaney earlier than he would have liked.

Following a start of just 1 1/3 innings last Saturday in San Francisco, Heaney once again was given a quick hook in Friday night in the Rangers’ 9-8 series-opening loss to the Brewers, this time with two outs in the fourth inning.

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The Brewers worked Heaney hard for all 3 2/3 innings he tossed, tagging the lefty for seven hits and one walk as Milwaukee took an early 3-0 lead. 

Prior to his San Francisco start, Heaney was feeling under the weather and didn’t throw a bullpen that week, leading to the quicker hook against the Giants. Both Bochy and Heaney said there wasn’t a similar concern going into this start. 

“He’s fine,” Bochy said. “He was just off with the command. He was getting behind the count and just couldn’t hit the spots. He was trying to battle through it, but pitches kind of caught up with him there.”

Heaney said he felt physically fine coming off the illness last week, but he struggled with his command all night on Friday. While he had three strikeouts to one walk, he couldn’t consistently get the ball where he wanted it in the zone. 

“I just fell behind on hitters, didn't make good pitches and just didn't really do anything good today,” he said. “It's not the best stuff that I've ever had. But you got to go out there, and you got to compete with what you got.

“Like I said, it felt like [with] every guy, I was behind 2-0 in the count and just had a lot of traffic. I put myself in bad situations and did not make good pitches when I needed to.”

Unlike Heaney’s last start in San Francisco, when the bullpen picked him up after a short outing, the same group of Rangers relievers couldn’t quite come through to shut down the Brewers. 

Against the Giants, the group of Grant Anderson, Chris Stratton, Josh Sborz and Brock Burke combined for 7 2/3 innings, while allowing just two runs among them. Against Milwaukee, the four surrendered six runs in 4 1/3 innings, though Jose Leclerc tossed a clean ninth inning. 

“We came back and took the lead, but Sborz, he had an off night,” Bochy said. “It's going to happen occasionally. The pitching has really done a great job, and this one just got away from us tonight.”

And also unlike that San Francisco game, the Rangers’ offense was unable to complete the comeback. 

Texas tied the game with homers from Nathaniel Lowe and Mitch Garver and took a brief lead in the sixth on Corey Seager’s leadoff double and Adolis García’s RBI single. The Rangers didn’t score again until the bottom of the ninth, when they plated four to make it a one-run ballgame.

“A lot of fight there from our guys, and we just ran out of runway,” Bochy said. “I mean, they did a great job of finding a way to get the tying run up there, and it was so close. It’s a game of inches, and it's baseball. But you have to love the fight. The pitching was off tonight, and we got down. But you got to keep going, and these guys did that.”

The Rangers are now 1-37 this year when trailing after seven innings and 0-42 when trailing after eight.  

“I think we're a great offense,” Marcus Semien said. “We're still in first place; we’re playing good baseball. I mean, I haven't really taken time to think about how we've been doing in that category [when trailing]. But I know tonight, we did great. We just didn't finish the job.”