Kyle Gibson was the star Wednesday, but five Texas Rangers are off to hot starts
Kyle Gibson hung around a little longer Wednesday afternoon for the Texas Rangers than he did on Opening Day.
Or course, it would have been a pitching nightmare if he hadn’t recorded more than one out in his second start of the season.
Gibson record 18 of them in a 2-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays.
Making good on his second chance, the right-hander tossed six scoreless innings on six hits and one walk. He struck out eight.
He took advantage of a mechanical adjustment spotted by pitching Doug Mathis, standing more upright when in the stretch, and parlayed it into the Rangers’ first quality start of the season.
“Those changes I made this week, what Doug recognized toward the end of spring training and my last outing, were huge,” Gibson said. “They allowed me to stay on the plate better, allowed my stuff to be better and really I felt like I did early in spring training.”
Gibson wiggled off the hook the two times the Blue Jays threatened, but the biggest escape was in the fifth.
The bases were loaded with one out for Cavan Biggio, who homered Monday and made good contact on a first-pitch curveball from Gibson. The ball, though, took two hard hops right to shortstop Isiah-Kiner Falefa, who easily turned an inning-ending double play.
That preserved a 2-0 lead the Rangers built against Hyun Jin Ryu on a solo homer by Nick Solak to start the second inning and a broken-bat RBI single later in the inning by Leody Taveras.
“It was nice to see Gibby get back out there and do what we expect,” manager Chris Woodward said. “Solak got a pitch in the middle that he did damage on. I said it to the guys in the beginning, ‘It’s going to take a few jam shots and possibly some broken bats to win the game today.’ It’s funny how that worked out.”
The Rangers 3-3 after an abysmal two-game start to the season thanks to contributions by Gibson on Wednesday and these others five players who have been the Rangers’ best so far.
Nate Lowe, 1B
This one was a slam dunk.
Acquired in December in a six-player trade with Tampa Bay, Lowe has given the Rangers’ decision to make him their starter first base plenty of justification. He set a franchise mark for most RBIs (14) in the first five games of a season.
He also become the first MLB player since 1920 to drive in 14 runs in his first five games with a team, topping the mark of 12 by Erubiel Durazo (2003 A’s), Calvin Pickering (2004 Royals) and Trevor Story (2016 Rockies).
Lowe is going to slow down, of course, but as long as he doesn’t go completely down the drain he’s going to provide some protection for Joey Gallo and also have plenty of RBI chances as long as Gallo doesn’t go complete down the drain.
Joey Gallo, RF
Gallo has been an on-base machine, laying off most of the bad pitches coming his way. And there has been no shortage of those.
There has been a shortage of fastballs, but that’s to be expected.
Gallo has only one home run and didn’t have hit in the three-game series against Toronto, but he has been on base 13 times in six games this season. He has had success with two strikes, and five of his six hits are singles.
It’s early, but Gallo looks like a different, better hitter than last season.
Jordan Lyles, RHP
Lyles allowed two runs in 5 2/3 innings Sunday to become the first player to earn the postgame cowboy hat. He struck out eight and didn’t issue any walks for his best start since joining the Rangers last season.
Lyles was terrible in 2020, pitching to a 7.02 ERA. He owned up to it, made changes to his repertoire over the offseason, and carried everything into spring training.
He’s pushing to move out of a tandem role, but still has work to do. Namely, he needs more outings like the one he gave Sunday to lead the Rangers to their first win of the season.
Isiah Kiner-Falefa, SS
The shortstop went through an 0-for-8 mini-skid after a double as the Rangers’ first hitter of the season, but found his footing Sunday and kept hitting against the Blue Jays.
Even when making outs, he’s hitting the ball hard.
Motivated by even the slightest of slights (he went after MLB for not showing enough Rangers highlights on Twitter), Kiner-Falefa has been trumpeting that the Rangers are going to surprise some people this season and that he will, too, as the Rangers first Opening Day shortstop other than Elvis Andrus since 2008.
Dane Dunning, RHP
If player development is the Rangers’ No. 1 goal this season, and it is, Dunning’s debut with the team rates as an early success.
Acquired in the Lance Lynn trade with the Chicago White Sox, Dunning pounded the strike zone over five innings Tuesday. He piled up six strikeouts but still pitched efficiently, recording 15 outs on a tidy 70 pitches.
His outing was one of three tone-setters by rookies, joining Wes Benjamin’s 2 1/3 scoreless Sunday and Brett de Geus’ 2 2/3 scoreless frames Monday.
This story was originally published April 7, 2021 at 5:27 PM.
