ARLINGTON, Texas _ The Rangers on Saturday tried to make Joey Gallo comfortable.
Short of handing him a hot chocolate and building him a nice fire, they did everything they could. Namely, they moved him back to the middle of the order on an otherwise frigid night. It did wonders for him, probably more than the black balaclavas he and all the other Rangers for the third coldest game in Globe Life Park history. It was degrees 42 at game time, with a wind chill of 35. It's hard to get comfortable in that.
Mike Minor made it even rougher on Toronto with an assortment of 94-mph fastballs and a good changeup. He didn't allow a hit through four innings and allowed just two while becoming the second Rangers starter this year to get through six innings.
Gallo found a way to put everybody at easy. Pushed back to the No. 5 spot for the first time this season, he was in the middle of the Rangers' two rallies in a 5-1 win over Toronto. He began the second inning with a walk _ just his second of the year _ and eventually scored. Then he broke a personal 0-for-18 skid with a two-out, two-run double in the fifth inning.
After watching the offense flail around for 10 days as he tried Gallo in the No. 2 spot, manager Jeff Banister decided to end the experiment. At least for now. Perhaps whenever Delino DeShields gets back to the lineup and adds a stolen base threat at the top of the lineup, the Rangers will reconsider. For now, they need production. And dropping Gallo to a more "comfortable" spot seemed the best route.
"You want a still-developing young player to be as comfortable as he can be," manager Jeff Banister said. "Without Delino, the dynamic changes for our lineup. This was a case of me thinking, maybe we can back off the flame a little bit right now and allow Joey to get in more of a comfort zone."
In the No. 2 spot, Gallo had seemed a little less patient than he was a year ago. He looked for the first fastball he got and tried to drive it the other way. But, he didn't get a ton of fastballs. And when he did, they often weren't in the strike zone. They resulted in lazy pop flies. Gallo began the day averaging only 3.59 pitches per plate appearance; he averaged 4.21 in 2017.
The lineup was more shuffled because the Rangers opted to give Adrian Beltre, celebrating his 39th birthday his first full day off this season. It meant taking the usual No. 4 hitter out of the lineup.
In Gallo's first plate appearance, Marcus Stroman made it easy on him to be patient, walking him on four pitches. Stroman followed by walking Beltre's replacement, Jurickson Profar, on four pitches two. A ground ball and a sacrifice fly got the Rangers a 1-0 lead.
But the Rangers were 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position when Gallo came up with two outs in the fifth to face Stroman again. Gallo, who also walked in his second plate appearance, lined a ball just inside first base for a two-run double. Profar and Juan Centeno each followed with run-scoring singles to give the Rangers a 5-0 lead. It was their biggest lead of the season.
It was a big change for Gallo. He had taken all 39 of the Rangers' plate appearances in the No. 2 spot. He is hitting .184 with a .574 OPS. The Rangers rank 26th in the majors for both stats at the No. 2 spot.
The Rangers had bet that with DeShields at the top of the order, they could create more opportunities for Gallo. If DeShields was on base, Banister thought the stolen base threat might get opponents to loosen up their extreme shifts. And the threat of DeShields running might also force more fastballs Gallo's way. DeShields, however, was lost for at least a month in the second game of the season with a broken bone in his hand.
Nothing really developed for Gallo along those lines.
He saw fastballs 51.4 percent of the time, which was actually up a bit for the small sample size compared to last year (45.7 percent). But it was still 68th of 102 AL qualifiers. He began the day 3 for 19 (.158) against fastballs this season.
There were a number of changes to the Rangers lineup Saturday, but much of that was due to giving Beltre. Banister said the move of Gallo out of the No. 2 spot, however, did not have to do with Beltre getting the day off. The Rangers had planned to give Beltre a day off this weekend and chose Saturday over Sunday because of the cold weather. Rougned Odor moved into the No. 2 spot.
"He's been there," Banister said. "He's had some success there. He can run a little and it gives us that option ahead of Elvis (Andrus). He has swung the bat OK and he's been getting better."
On Saturday, though, it was Joey Gallo who looked to be doing just fine.
