ANAHEIM, Calif. — When Wednesday's 21-8 loss by the Texas Rangers got out of hand, one question that went unanswered was who would have been the position player used by the Rangers to pitch if needed.
The answer is either Craig Gentry or Alberto Gonzalez.
As bad as the game was, it never got to that point because Koji Uehara was able to finish the eighth and work the ninth without much effort. He was the last line of defense as far as pitchers go.
"If Koji would have come in and had problems getting outs like a lot of those guys did, then I wasn't going to let Koji stay out there and just get beat on," Rangers manager Ron Washington said. "We would have had to go to a player. I didn't want to do that."
Washington would have gone with Gentry or Gonzalez over Mitch Moreland, who pitched in college at Mississippi State. Washington said Moreland made it known through another source in the dugout that he was ready to pitch.
Washington wasn't going to take that risk.
"I wasn't putting Mitch on that mound," he said. "I certainly didn't want him to have a flashback when he was at Mississippi (State) and try to do something and then his arm follows his ball up to home plate. I would have probably put a Gentry or a Gonzalez out there and have them take a beating until they got three outs."
Washington said he wouldn't even have used Moreland if it was a close game and the team was out of pitchers. He said a regular's health isn't worth the risk.
The game did give the Rangers a chance to see Brandon Snyder catch in the majors for the first time in his career. Snyder caught Uehara in the ninth inning.
"It was fun to get back there again," said Snyder, who caught in the minors with Baltimore after he was drafted. "It was surprisingly comfortable once I got in the game. I was pretty nervous going in just because it had been since 2006 when I really caught in a game. When I got in there, it was a flashback to before."
Snyder did take advantage of the opportunity to update his Twitter picture to an image of him in catching gear from the game. He did that as proof to his old friends that he did it.
"That's for all my buddies who talk trash and say I can't catch anymore," he said.
