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Jackson, Claudio give rest of ‘pen a breather
- Updated: June 2, 2016
CLEVELAND — Manager Jeff Banister had an obvious goal as the Rangers went into extra innings against the Indians on Wednesday night. Banister was trying to pull off a sweep against the Indians without using his prime-time relievers.
So he went with right-hander Luke Jackson and left-hander Alex Claudio. Banister said both threw the ball well, but the Rangers didn’t get the results they wanted as the Indians walked off with a 5-4 victory in 11 innings.
Jackson and Claudio pitched in relief of Cole Hamels, who went seven innings and 110 pitches. Banister did not have right-handers Matt Bush, Tony Barnette and Sam Dyson warm up at all in the final four innings. Left-hander Jake Diekman got up just once and Cesar Ramos had pitched three innings for a save on Monday.
Banister was determined to stay away from that group as much as he could.
“Absolutely,” Banister said. “Going into the off-day and we’ve had some games where the back end of the bullpen worked hard. We were coming off a couple of series where we had to close some games out. We’re trying to protect some guys.”
The Rangers ended up losing for the fifth time …
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