Final thoughts from the Texas Rangers’ win over the Braves: Adolis García is on fire

ATLANTA - One thing that has been key in the resurgence of Kirby Yates is his split-finger fastball he said has “more bite” than it’s had the last two years.

This could only lead to one follow-up question: Had he spent any time talking to Nathan Eovaldi about the splitter this spring?

“Not much,” Yates said Sunday before extending his season-opening scoreless streak to 10 innings by closing out the Rangers’ 6-4 win over Atlanta. “But enough.”

In other words, it didn’t take much for Eovaldi, who loves talking the art and science of pitching, to help Yates refine the pitch. They talked grips this spring. Eovaldi mentioned how loose he tries to keep his wrist when throwing the pitch. That was all it took. Yates said he realized he’d been keeping his wrist exceptionally tight on the pitch.

“It’s hard to spin the ball when your wrist is so tight,” he said. “Sometimes, that’s all it takes is one thing, one word, one sentence to help you get back on the right track.”

On Sunday, Yates, who spent the previous two seasons with Atlanta, teamed with David Robertson to work the final three innings. Yates retired all four batters he faced on just 15 pitches. What was unusual about Sunday, he used the splitter more sparingly, only four times. Only got one swing and miss. But it was a big one.

He entered the game with tying runs on base to face Orlando Arcía with two outs in the eighth. At 1-1, he threw a splitter that had lots of late dive for a swing and a miss. Gave him a big advantage in the matchup. He came right back with a fastball above the zone to get Arcía to chase for Strike Three. Inning over.

Even Atlanta manager Brian Snitker couldn’t help but sing his praises.

“I’m glad he’s healthy,” Snitker said. “Kirby went through a lot for a lot of years, so I’m happy for him that he’s healthy and continuing his career. Because he’s a wonderful person.”

And with that, here are some other VERY IMPORTANT final thoughts about what we learned of this Rangers team during this stretch:

Hottest April: Adolis García is on one. Doubled off the top of the wall. Homered in the eighth. He has 22 RBIs in the Rangers’ first 23 games and is slashing .326/.368/.616/.984. García’s swing seems more under control early this season than perhaps ever before. Also: He’s getting to high fastballs better than in the past.

One thing that has stood out about García’s career with the Rangers is he’s annually improved in an area that was a pronounced deficiency. Fancy way of saying he keeps getting better and better. He was very good last April when he hit eight homers and drove in 30 runs. Might be even better this year.

Weirdest revenge: Perhaps you’ve heard: Catchers have been pummeling Rangers pitching this year. Travis d’Arnaud hit four homers in the first two games. Last week Shea Langeliers homered three times. Before that Houston’s Victor Caratini hit a three-run homer in a big Astros comeback. The Rangers began Sunday having allowed twice as many homers (eight) to opposing catchers as any team in the league. And you want to hear something really weird: This is a trend. They led the league in homers allowed to catchers last year. And in 2022 as well. Completely coincidental, but, yeah, gotta have a better attack-the-catcher approach … I guess?

This is when Andrew Knizner enters the chat. The Rangers’ backup, pressed into back-to-back starts by Jonah Heim’s placement on the Bereavement List, got a little revenge. He clobbered a high changeup from Darius Vines with two outs in the fourth for a three-run game-changing homer that gave the Rangers the lead. Knizner had entered the game as the Ranger least likely to change anything after getting out to a 1-for-16 start.

Biggest disappearance: Where’s José Leclerc? With the bullpen fully rested and a slender lead to nurse through the final three innings, the seventh would have seemed to be calling for Leclerc. Instead, Bochy asked David Robertson and Kirby Yates to each get more than three outs to finish off the game.

Leclerc has already been moved out of the closer’s role but didn’t think he’d been moved out of leverage situations. It was odd to see him bypassed. Of course, with a day off Monday, the Rangers could afford to ask their most trusted guys to go a little longer than usual.

Worst Angel Hernandez impression: At this point, Wyatt Langford’s favorite umpire has just become everybody’s punch line. Even when he’s not around. While Hernandez was off doing a Dodgers-Mets game in Los Angeles, home plate umpire Brock Ballou certainly conjured up bad thoughts for reliever David Robertson.

Ballou appeared to miss critical strikes in Robertson’s eighth-inning matchup against Austin Riley. The first missed call on a cutter down, evened the count at 1-1. The next pitch was in almost an identical spot but instead put Riley ahead in the count. And at 2-1, Riley may have failed to check his swing on a curveball in the dirt, but umpires ruled he held up. It all left Robertson frustrated. Even more so after Riley bounced a ball through a wide-open hole at second when Marcus Semien broke to cover the bag. It scored a run and brought the tying run to the plate. Robertson could be seen letting the umpires know what he thought about things.

Find more Rangers coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.

Click or tap here to sign up for our Rangers newsletter.