ARLINGTON, Texas – Momentum swings can be a funny thing in the postseason, as despite owning a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five American League Division Series, the Texas Rangers are feeling a little bit of heat heading in Monday’s Game 4 against the Toronto Blue Jays.
Heading back north for a decisive fifth game at Rogers Centre would leave the AL West champions in a bad spot, as only five times have clubs allowed a 2-0 advantage in the division to slip away.
Should the Rangers find themselves in position to become the sixth, having already squandered two opportunities to advance, they’d be fighting both some pressure to win and the Blue Jays.
“We knew that Toronto was going to be ready to play,” Rangers manager Jeff Banister said after Sunday’s 5-1 loss. “We knew it was going to be a tough series. No stretch of the imagination did we think that this was going to be a ball club that was going to do anything other than what they did (Sunday), show up ready to play. We’ll show up ready to play.”
Into that spot steps left-hander Derek Holland, who went 4-3 with a 4.91 ERA in 10 starts after returning from a shoulder injury suffered during the Rangers’ home opener. While he’s had some good games – eight innings of one-run ball against the Angels on Sept. 5, for example – he’s also had some clunkers, four straight down the stretch before holding the Angels to three runs over 6.1 innings in a 5-3 win Oct. 1 that helped Texas maintain control of the division.
He didn’t fare especially well against the Blue Jays when he faced them Aug. 25, allowing four runs on homers to Chris Colabello, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion over six innings. He watched intently as fellow southpaws Cole Hamels and Martin Perez started in this series, looking to pick things up in case he was called upon.
“I’ve got that in my head,” he said. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you what I learned, defeats the purpose, but yes, I saw some things and I’ve got to go out there and try to use that, I’ve also got to use my strength and find some other weaknesses on them, too.”
Holland has stepped up in games of consequence before, throwing 8.1 shutout innings against the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 4 of the 2011 World Series. Albert Pujols hit three home runs in Game 3 and Holland’s gem helped even things up when the Rangers really needed it.
Though he hasn’t started a postseason game since, he’ll have that experience to draw from.
“It just shows that no matter what the situation is, I can pitch in the big games as well,” said Holland. “Like you said, I pitched in Game 4 of the World Series. I just have to prepare myself for now. Toronto is a good ball club, really good offence. I have to do my job to really mix it up for them, make it a little bit harder, kind of move forward from there.”