'Baseball gods were taking care of them': Rangers drop Coliseum finale
Rocker, Leiter combine for 8 innings; A's score go-ahead run on popup lost in the sun
Kennedi Landry
@kennlandryOAKLAND -- It was an odd and sad bus ride into the East Bay for the Rangers on Thursday morning.
Preparing for the final game at the Oakland Coliseum, A¡¯s fans filled the parking lots as the sun rose. Athletics legends like Dave Stewart and Rickey Henderson roamed the large space of foul territory during batting practice. Barry Zito sang the national anthem. Rangers manager Bruce Bochy reminisced on his time at this ballpark when he was at the helm of the San Francisco Giants across the Bay. It was a celebration.
It would ultimately be a sellout crowd of 46,889 fans by the time former Athletic Marcus Semien stepped into the batter's box to lead off the game.
For all the excitement of the day permeating throughout the ballpark, the Rangers still knew they had baseball to play this week, intent on finishing the season strong, despite what was happening in front of them.
¡°I'm focused on us playing good baseball,¡± Semien said going into the series. ¡°But yes, it's a pretty surreal thing for someone to tell you that this is the last baseball game here. ¡ Oakland is one of those places where you still felt that authenticity. It's just a bummer that this is the last game.¡±
The Rangers dropped the Coliseum finale, 3-2. They finished with 203 total wins at the facility, good for the most by a visiting team in Oakland.
Rookie pitchers Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter combined for all eight innings, with Rocker's three earned runs making the difference in the game.
¡°It's always cool when there's a kind of the buzz in the stadium,¡± Leiter said after throwing 3 1/3 scoreless frames. ¡°Obviously, as a starter, you don't go out there early, but as a reliever, I did. So just feeling that, there was that excited energy, it felt like, in all of us. It was pretty cool to have a packed house here. There¡¯s a lot of history.¡±
Bochy commended his two young pitchers for keeping the Rangers in the game the whole way, though neither was perfect. The two held their own in what felt like a postseason environment, though the defense did few favors behind them.
The winning run scored with two outs in the fifth inning, when rookie left fielder Wyatt Langford lost a fly ball in the sun, allowing Jacob Wilson to score from second base and end Rocker¡¯s day.
¡°Maybe the baseball gods were taking care of them on that one,¡± Bochy said. ¡°[Langford] has done such a good job out there in left field. I've seen a lot of fly balls lost in that sun out here. That area is where you see it lost the most. There were a couple plays we didn't make, and that sun ball was one of them. That was really the difference in the game.¡±
Outside of the Rangers¡¯ two previous home ballparks, and the original Washington Senators' home park, the club has also played in the final game at the Seattle Kingdome and Municipal Stadium in Kansas City. Texas lost both of those matchups as well.
Texas has played 412 games all-time at the Coliseum, the third-most games at any venue since the franchise moved to Texas in 1972, behind 2,081 at the Ballpark in Arlington (1994-2019) and 1,750 at Arlington Stadium (1972-93).
¡°I¡¯m disappointed we didn't play well,¡± Semien said postgame. ¡°That's really what I'm here to do, is play good baseball. But in terms of this community showing up for this team, it's pretty sad, because there are a lot of people who love this team in Oakland. ¡ It¡¯s a great place to play when you fill it up. It¡¯s a place I love to play baseball at, and I won¡¯t anymore.¡±