At least Joey Gallo homered Wednesday night.
That turned out to be the lone highlight for the Texas Rangers on a night they were blown out by the Chicago White Sox 9-2 and lost Josh Hamilton for a month to a Grade 2 hamstring strain.
Gallo became the first player in club history to homer in his first two games when he hit a solo shot 411 feet in the ninth inning into the upper home run porch.
Unfortunately for the Rangers, Gallo's homer did nothing to change the outcome of the game on a night the offense was dominated by Chicago ace Chris Sale and Texas starter Nick Martinez had his worst outing of the season.
Martinez, who had allowed 19 runs in his first 10 starts combined, didn't make it out of the fourth Wednesday as he was tagged for seven earned runs on nine hits in 3 1/3 innings. He didn't allow a run in the first inning but was roughed up for six in the second inning and neither he nor the Rangers recovered.
"I couldn't really make my pitches," said Martinez, who hadn't allowed more than three earned runs in any start this season. "They hit my mistakes and they were all over my off-speed today. I was just kind of struggling to find it."
As hot as the Texas offense had been during a four-game winning streak, even a six-run frame wouldn't have been out of the question to overcome. But with the way Sale was pitching, that wasn't going to happen.
Texas had scoring chances against him in the first three innings but failed to capitalize. After that he settled in and mowed through the Texas lineup, striking out 13 in seven scoreless innings.
"When you're facing a pitcher the quality that we were tonight, you have to capitalize on run-scoring opportunities and he just continued to get strong as the night went on," Texas manager Jeff Banister said. "Those are tough at-bats and we couldn't get anything going after that."
It was especially challenging for Gallo, who struck out in all three of his at-bats against Sale. But when Chicago went to another lefty in Zach Duke in the ninth, Gallo didn't miss on a 1-0 pitch.
"It was a great learning experience," Gallo said of facing Sale. "It's not fun to do. I want to help this team win, but he was on tonight and I've never seen stuff like that from the left side. Next time I feel like I'll have a better chance. I thought my at-bats were getting progressively better."
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