Corey Seager Rangers look for another win vs. Diamondbacks.
Arizona Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo won’t have much time to try to devise a new strategy for dealing with Texas Rangers slugger Corey Seager.
Seager, who punished the Diamondbacks en route to being named the World Series MVP last fall, struck again Tuesday night with a three-run homer in the first meeting between the teams since the Rangers’ title clincher in November.
The two-game series concludes Wednesday with a matinee in Arlington, Texas.
With the Diamondbacks holding a 2-0 lead on Tuesday, Lovullo chose to walk Seager with two outs and a runner at second in the third inning. The move backfired when Josh Smith singled in a run.
Two innings later, with Arizona still ahead 2-1, Texas had runners on the corners with one out and Seager at the plate. He clobbered the first pitch he saw from Brandon Pfaadt into the third row beyond the right-field fence.
Seager had five home runs through 43 games, but he has seven in seven games since then. His slow start came after he missed spring training due to sports hernia surgery in late January.
“There was never any thought that he wouldn’t get on track,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said. “And the time they did walk him, Smitty did what we need to do. He got a big base hit.”
It’s a matter of taking advantage of opportunities, said Seager, a four-time All-Star who was Rookie of the Year in 2016, the same season he finished third in National League MVP voting while with the Dodgers.
“Just getting some good pitches and not missing them. You miss ’em early and then you get the bad counts, and you start chasing,” Seager said Tuesday night.
Lovullo could find some consolation that Pfaadt went seven innings and had lobbied the manager to keep going.
“He really wanted to go back out there for the eighth inning,” Lovullo said. “I told him he did his job. We were ready to line some things up around him. He looked like he was getting the pitches he wanted to throw, executing it and — outside of that one inning where he got clipped for that three-run homer — I thought he did a great job.”
