Remember when we all laughed at Josh Hamilton recently when he left eight runners on base in one game?
Well, Adrian Beltre had a similar game for the Texas Rangers on Thursday night as the Rangers lost their first series of the season as the offense was held to just one run while one bad pitch doomed AL Rookie of the Month Justin Grimm, who took the tough-luck loss.
In the Rangers' 3-1 loss, Beltre got the Rangers' lone run with an early solo home run. After his homer on Tuesday night, people might have thought Beltre was on his way to busting out of a slump that has extended to more than a month now to start the season, but that didn't happen.
Beltre came up in key situations twice more on the night, and in his final two at-bats had the chance to give the Rangers a lead, or at least tie the game.
There was the bases-loaded, one-out at-bat when he grounded into a double play — the one thing you don't want to do in that situation when even a fly ball will do you some good. In his next at-bat, with runners on first and second base, Beltre struck out.
Are we sounding the panic alarm? No, far from it. Beltre will be fine, but right now having a cleanup hitter batting .215 with six home runs and 12 RBIs is killing the Rangers' offense. He also has 12 strikeouts.
It's hard to believe Beltre won't bust out of this slump soon, but the bad news is over his career May has been his worst month at the plate, so you know the Rangers are hoping that trend doesn't continue in 2013.
