Josh Jung’s Double Showed What the Rangers’ Hit Total Left Missing

Josh Jung sent Danny Jansen home with a third-inning double, pulling Texas level at 1-1. It was the kind of hit the Rangers needed again. By the end of Tuesday’s 6-3 loss to the Mets, it was still their only extra-base hit.

Jung’s double supplied Texas’ only extra-base hit at Globe Life Field. After that, Texas recorded only one more hit: Brandon Nimmo’s fourth-inning single. Nimmo also singled in the second inning. Jake Burger reached on a throwing error that inning, which did not add to the hit total. That distinction matters when describing how little clean contact Texas produced.

New York’s seven-hit advantage was obvious. Its five doubles made the difference more specific. A single puts a runner on first. A double places a runner in scoring position immediately, changing the number of ways the next hitters can bring him home. That distinction shaped the game’s biggest innings more clearly than the raw hit count alone.

The Mets’ first double came from Francisco Alvarez in the third inning. It did not score a run by itself, but it moved Alvarez to second. After A.J.

Ewing flew out and Luis Torrens grounded out, Francisco Lindor walked and Juan Soto singled Alvarez home. Soto received the RBI; Alvarez scored. The sequence still began with Alvarez’s extra-base hit, which put Alvarez in scoring position before the rest of the inning unfolded.

Carson Benge’s fourth-inning ground-rule double offered a different version of the same advantage. Benge reached second before Marcus Semien lined out. Alvarez then reached on a fielding error by Texas right fielder Brandon Nimmo, and Benge scored.

The error was the immediate cause of the run, so this was not an RBI double. But the double still mattered: New York had a runner in scoring position before the defensive mistake extended the inning. Baseball is occasionally generous enough to let one event do the setup and another collect the blame.

The sixth inning supplied the game’s decisive example. Brett Baty doubled to open the inning, and Benge walked. Semien’s force play at third removed Baty, but it did not end the threat; Benge remained at second and Semien reached first.

Alvarez then doubled, scoring both Benge and Semien. That swing turned a 3-2 Rangers lead into a 4-3 Mets lead. Torrens’ sacrifice fly scored Alvarez, completing a three-run inning built around Baty’s double, Alvarez’s two-run double and the baserunners those plays created.

Benge added another double in the seventh. Baty had reached first after a force play, and Benge’s line drive to right brought him home. That was New York’s second double with a direct RBI, following Alvarez’s sixth-inning hit.

The Mets did not need a home run to create separation; Alvarez’s double drove in two runs, Benge’s later double drove in one, and the earlier doubles helped arrange other scoring situations.

Texas’ three runs arrived through a more demanding chain of events. Jung’s double produced one in the third. In the fourth, Nimmo singled, Ezequiel Duran walked and Justin Foscue was hit by a pitch.

Elias Díaz and Wyatt Langford then each lifted a sacrifice fly, scoring Nimmo and Duran. Those outs gave Texas a 3-2 lead, but they required three baserunners and two separate at-bats to move the inning forward. The Rangers never again produced a hit that advanced a batter beyond first on its own.

That does not make singles or sacrifice flies lesser baseball. Texas’ fourth-inning rally was efficient in its own way, and New York left 10 runners on base compared with six for the Rangers. The Mets also needed a fielding error to score in the fourth, and not every double became a run. A double is opportunity, not a guaranteed deposit in the scoreboard account.

Still, the hit-type contrast explains the final margin. Sean Manaea held Texas to three hits over six innings and struck out nine. New York’s lineup produced five doubles from three players: Alvarez and Benge had two each, while Baty had one. Those hits repeatedly placed runners closer to home and reduced the number of additional events required to score.

New York collected five doubles. Texas had Jung’s. Several other things went wrong for the Rangers, but the space between those two totals is where this game’s offensive argument begins.

Sources

Official MLB game record

Official MLB play-by-play and box score