ARLINGTON, Texas - Texas manager Ron Washington's answer to a postgame question could have also been a plea to his starting rotation.
"We just need our starters to get a little deeper," Washington said following Tuesdays' 8-3 loss to Houston.
The four innings pitched by rookie right-hander Phil Irwin in his Texas debut wasn't what Washington had in mind. Not when it followed the 3 1/3 innings pitched by Miles Mikolas in Monday's lopsided loss to the Astros. Or the six innings of six-run ball served up by Nick Tepesch Sunday.
While Irwin only allowed three runs in his four innings Tuesday, he left five innings for an already-taxed bullpen to work and Houston took advantage on its way to a second-consecutive series win over the Rangers. Texas has now dropped four straight to the Astros for the first time since 2002 and has now lost consecutive series to a Houston team that hadn't won a series against the Rangers since 2008 before this season.
But allowing at least eight runs for a third-consecutive time and baseball high 24th time this season proved way too much of a mountain for the Texas makeshift lineup to overcome Tuesday.
And it all starts with a rotation that rolled out its 12th starter of the season Tuesday in Irwin.
"It's always a challenge when the starters don't give you the innings you need and you're trying not to overwork guys too much but you end up doing it anyway," Washington said.
Irwin was done in by a wacky 33-pitch top of the first that included three hits, a wild pitch, a walk, a stolen base, a pickoff and a runner reaching by slow play from catcher Chris Gimenez on a strikeout of Robbie Grossman. Of course for a Texas team that's now lost 17 of its last 20 games, Grossman came around to score the game's first run.
Irwin was fortunate Houston only scored twice in the first but he left in the fourth after walking Grossman, putting his pitch count at 83 to retire 12 outs. He was charged with three runs for a rotation that's ERA over the last nine games is 8.73.
"It came down to the first inning and I kind of wasted all my pitches there," said Irwin, who was making just his second major-league start. "I was overthrowing out the gate. The command was bad. After I went in and sat for a while and calmed down, I felt like I threw the ball well."
The Rangers trailed 3-1 after three innings and got it to 3-2 in the fourth but Houston scored single runs in the sixth and seventh before busting the game open with three runs in the eighth off Aaron Poreda.
Houston, which came into the game last in the American League in batting average and 14th in runs scored, rattled off 12 hits Tuesday and has 29 in the first two games of the series. Eighteen of those have come against the starters in just 7 1/3 innings.
Those numbers make it tough to win but the Rangers realize that's the reality they're dealing with right now.
"To me it comes down to the preparedness and the nerves," said Gimenez. "I know my first time in the big leagues I was nervous. It's the same game but it's just automatic you're going to be nervous. A lot of it is just getting that out and realizing that it's the same game we've all been playing since we're kids. I think it's going to be critical going forward."
