ARLINGTON Lewis Brinson Jersey , Texas (AP) —e for another frustrating start for Houston Astros right-hander Gerrit Cole against Texas.Cole needed 43 pitches to get out of a five-run first inning, when he struck out Gallo with the bases loaded. Cole’s ERA went up from 3.24 to 5.22 after he was charged with all of the runs as the Rangers won 9-4 on Saturday night.“I’m not trying to throw a pity party. It was a bad start. It’s probably the worst of my career,” said Cole (1-3), who last season didn’t take his third loss until his 22nd start, when he was 10-3 on July 30.It wasn’t until Gallo took a called third strike on Cole’s 32nd pitch that the right-hander finally recorded an out.Gallo pulled a ball deep for the second night in a row, this time curling a homer over the top of the right field pole in the third inning to make it 6-0. His eighth homer of the season, measured at 433 feet after coming off the bat at 111 mph, followed a 442-foot drive down that line in the series opener.“We’re all kind of in awe,” Rangers manager Chris Woodward said. “Every time the ball comes off his bat, you just think you’re going to see something you’ve never seen before.”Asdrúbal Cabrera accounted for five runs, driving in three and scoring twice.Max Stassi and George Springer homered for the Astros, who lost for only the second time in 13 games since they left Globe Life Park at 2-5 a week into the season.That was after a series-ending 4-0 loss to the Rangers when Cole was clearly agitated when he immediately went to the plate umpire after recording his final out in the sixth. He was upset about being limited on his warmup pitches, and maybe a call or two. Manager AJ Hinch and hitting coach Alex Cintron were ejected early in that game for arguing balls and strikes when Houston was batting.Cole’s second start this year against the Rangers went sour quick. While he struck out nine in his 4 1/3 innings, the nine runs, and eight earned, he allowed were both career highs.Shin-Soo Choo had a leadoff double, reaching safely in his 14th start in a row. Danny Santana followed with an RBI single, the first of his three hits. Gallo’s strikeout came after consecutive walks, including Elvis Andrus on a 10-pitch at-bat that ended with a 99 mph fastball that appeared to be over the plate.“Every time we face quality pitching like yesterday (Justin) Verlander and today Cole, you have to fight http://www.marlinsfanproshop.com/authentic-starlin-castro-jersey , man. It won’t be an easy at-bat,” Andrus said. “We had a great plan against him today, and everybody sticks to that plan.”Cabrera then blooped a two-run single to shallow left between two fielders before a two-out error led to another run.“We had a difficult first inning. It started there, about anything that could happen badly in that inning happened,” Hinch said. “Everything spiraled a little bit.”Cole felt he might have tipped some of his pitches, but credited the Rangers for how they executed against him.“He got a little fast early, it just looked like he was trying to grunt his way through his outing and just get to the next pitch” Hinch said. “He reached deep into his tank of 98, 99 (mph) early. When he’s doing that, he’s trying to get out of that big inning. All in all just a bad night.”AND THE WINNER ISShawn Kelly (3-0) worked 1 2/3 scoreless innings in relief of starter Adrian Sampson, who allowed hits to the first four batters in the fifth.TRAINER’S ROOMRangers: 2B Rougned Odor (right knee sprain) took some groundballs and hit in the cage. Manager Chris Woodward said Odor “let loose a little bit” after previously being a bit tentative moving side to side. Odor is still one to two weeks away from getting back in the lineup.UP NEXTAstros: RHP Collin McHugh (3-1, 1.96), who threw 9 2/3 scoreless innings in six relief appearances against Texas last season, starts the series finale.Rangers: RHP Shelby Miller (0-1, 9.00) has thrown only 10 innings in his three starts, and averaged 24.2 pitches per inning. In the opening salvo for the series, we give the worm to the early bird, the first email we received from emailer John.I noticed Kauffman is generally listed as a neutral park (hitter v. pitcher)...."In the opening salvo for the series, we give the worm to the early bird, the first email we received from emailer John.I noticed Kauffman is generally listed as a neutral park (hitter v. pitcher). I’ve always believed it is a pitcher’s park, but the Royals had such bad pitching for so long that the numbers skewed more to the middle as a result. If you can look into it I’d greatly appreciate it! Thanks!This is definitely an often disconnect you hear vs what you read. Now John mentions that perhaps it’s the Royals pitchers that skew those numbers, but we should quickly go over how park factors work J. T. Realmuto Jersey , via FanGraphs:As FanGraphs points out, we care about both a pitcher/hitters home and away games, to get a full view, so unless a pitcher is just bad at home and bad away, it will all be fixed in the numbers from the high level view. So park factors should notice a team pitches well at home but bad away and then see that something is probably helping them.For now, let’s look at the park factors for Kauffman Stadium we can find (typically 1 or 100 is average):FanGraphs: 101 (5yr), 102 (3yr), 103 (1yr)Rotographs: 1.02 ESPN: 1.06Fantasy Pros: 1.05Baseball Prospectus: 100Baseball Reference: 101By all sources, Kauffman Stadium is at a minimum neutral, with a few sites leaning towards hitter friendly/pitcher unfriendly. But we always hear about Kauffman being a good pitchers park, which is both true and not. Park Factors per FanGraphsSome things that should pop out to you:At one time in the early 2000s, Kauffman was firmly a hitters park after the fences were moved in in 1995. In 2004 though, they were moved back, and a the area behind home plate was reduced slightly. Then of course in 2009 came the big aesthetic renovations that also saw left and right centerfield move back an additional two feet.Graphics via Andrew Clem at http://www.andrewclem.comAs you would expect, the fence moves in 2004 killed home runs in the park, a full 14 point swing from peak to trough (2000 to 2006), making Kauffman now one of the worst home runs parks in baseball.So we know that Kauffman Stadium is where fly balls go to die in the American League, so what makes up all that ground? Kauffman has historically been very good for hits outside of home runs. Even though it compressed a bit in the early-00s, once the walls were moved back it became a semi-hitters paradise for singles, doubles, and triples. This is due to Kauffman have one of the largest in play areas in baseball:Calculations per Scott Bailey30% of the time in 2018 http://www.marlinsfanproshop.com/authentic-starlin-castro-jersey , when any batter at Kauffman put a ball in play (including home runs) it went for a single, double, or triple. That’s amongst the top five rates in the league by venue.Another way to look at it is that just 35% of all home runs allowed at Kauffman were under 400 feet, the 2nd lowest rate in the league. Meaning to hit a home run at Kauffman, 65% of the time you needed to hit it further than 400 feet, as opposed to Houston where you only needed to hit the ball 400+ feet for a homerun 32% of the time.Looking around the league, the distribution for parks and their respective overall factors aren’t even either.There are more neutral to pitcher friendly parks than hitter friendly parks.On aggregate, the NL East is the “easiest” division to pitch in and the NL West is the hardest when you look at park factors. This perhaps challenges the notion that the AL East is the toughest environment to play, when it really isn’t much more challenging than the NL or AL Central.Now John also asks about the Royals pitchers, and I’m here to tell you that last year the Royals pitchers just give up home runs regardless of where they played:2018Home: 102 allowedAway: 103 allowedBut it varied in the prior years2017Home: 86 allowedAway: 110 allowed2016Home: 91 allowedAway: 115 allowed2015Home: 68 allowedAway: 87 allowedSo something was in the water in 2018 that caused all the home runs to be allowed regardless of geography. And by something I mean baseballs and by water I mean the various fountains and pools across major league stadiums that Ian Kennedy, Danny Duffy, and Jake Junis played in.As an ancillary thought, how about how Royals hitters fared home and away in regards to hits?2018Home: 456 1B 157 2B 18 3B 67 HRAway: 427 1B 126 2B 11 3B 88 HR2017Home: 463 1B 135 2B 13 3B 88 HRAway: 496 1B 125 2B 11 3B 105 HR2016Home: 513 1B 148 2B 23 3B 64 HRAway: 493 1B 116 2B 10 3B 83 HRYear in and year out, Royals batters hit more home runs away from Kauffman and more 1B/2B/3B at Kauffman. Now maybe this is an answer for an entirely different question/article, but how do opposing hitters do at Kauffman for home runs?2018Royals: 67 HR Opponents: 103 HR2017Royals: 88 HROpponents: 86 HR2016:Royals: 64 HROpponents: 91 HR2015Royals: 62 HROpponents: 68 HR2014Royals: 43 HROpponents: 59 HRSo typically, Royals opponents have out-homered them, often by a fair margin. That speaks to mainly the Royals roster construction than the park.In summary, Kauffman plays down home runs heavily, but plays up doubles and triples while being neutral to singles. It’s pretty poor for batters hitting infield fly balls given all the room it has. You would also think that since there is decent foul ball area given the overall size of the field of play, strikeouts would be more since there is more room for foul balls that would otherwise be in play at other stadiums (like Fenway).