In Tuesday's loss to the Kansas City Royals, the Texas Rangers had an obvious run-scoring opportunity in the top of the third inning with a 2-0 lead.
Ian Kinsler led off the inning with a double and moved to third base on a sacrifice bunt from Elvis Andrus to bring up Josh Hamilton with one out and Kinsler on third — seemingly nothing more than a sac fly from taking a 3-0 lead.
Instead, Kinsler was picked off by Royals catcher Salvador Perez at third base after being caught napping and looking right at home plate with his shoulders squared. That ended that run-scoring threat. Then in the bottom of the third, Kinsler's astronomical 15th error of the season on a routine soft grounder allowed the Royals to score two unearned runs en route to their 6-3 win over the Rangers.
“With Hamilton up there and Kinsler on third base with less than two outs, I’m thinking we’re going to get the run,” Rangers manager Ron Washington said. “But you don’t know if you are or not. They outplayed us. They played better than we did tonight.”
Kinsler, arguably the most polarizing player on the Rangers roster, right up there with Michael Young, has seemingly reverted defensively after turning in two very solid, gold-glove caliber defensive seasons in 2010 and 2011. And the propensity to be caught asleep on the base paths has to stop.
