The Rangers broke their “hex” on AT&T Park by sending Matt Harrison out there to stop the recent bleeding. Matt pitched a masterpiece, throwing a complete game shutout of the Giants, 5-0. Got to watch this on TV, and he right now is the team leader with wins I believe at 8. On June 8th. At that rate, if he stays healthy, 20 wins is a serious possibility. The last Rangers pitcher to make a run at that (if memory serves) was Scott Feldman when he won 17 a few years ago.
Matt went all nine innings, throwing 111 pitches, which is quite good for a complete game. Just five hits, and no walks. No runs, struck out four. While he didn’t “dominate” in the sense like he struck out 15 guys, the Giants could never get anything going. Just five scattered singles over nine innings is NOT going to get it done. It was really nice to see that, and see a guy who started out good pretty much stay that way, given our rotation’s current struggles.
The Rangers had a lot of hits (fourteen), but only pushed across five runs. Box score says we left 13 men on base, so that’s not good (didn’t count when I was watching).
The Rangers offense was led by Ian Kinsler & Josh Hamilton who both homered off of Barry Zito. For Josh, that was his 22nd home run of the year. Gentry, Cruz, & Young each had doubles, and then there was nine other singles. So it was a well balanced attack, the only guy to take an ofer was Matt Harrison, but that’s not a surprise. Matt did leave six men on base himself, an interesting stat there. All the more reason I like the DH. Needs to be in both leagues (especially after what happened two games after this one).
But the bottom line here was a stellar pitching performance by Matt Harrison. Looking good. Could use a bit of “looking good” right now.