Rangers' Lance Lynn: Pleased despite results

Lynn allowed five earned runs on three hits and two walks while striking out five over 2.2 innings in Sunday's game against the Dodgers.

This was Lynn's first spring start after throwing simulated games in camp. He cruised through the first two innings, striking out the side in the first, before getting into trouble as his outing was coming to a close. Manager Chris Woodward gave him the opportunity to escape a bases-loaded, two-out jam, but he allowed a double to end his work. "The stuff was all right, because there wasn't any hard contact or any balls that were barreled up, that's for sure," Lynn told Dave Sessions of MLB.com. "I'll stay there, fine-tune it a little bit more, get ahead and then quicker innings would be nice." The right-hander was a victim of the free-agent squeeze in 2018 and didn't sign with the Twins until mid-March, which hurt his early season performance. He appeared in only two spring games, going 0-3 with an 8.37 ERA in April. He recovered to pitch well the rest of the way (4.13 ERA, 135 strikeouts, 133 innings). After signing a three-year deal with the Rangers in December, he will have plenty of ramp-up to the regular season.