No pitcher has made as many starts as a Ranger over the last 10 seasons as Colby Lewis. Not only that, but he served as the consummate teammate, anchoring the end of the spectrum opposite the one where Rickey Henderson introduces himself to John Olerud, who reminds him of someone.
So when it came time for me to take on the exercise of rooting out the hottest starting pitching streaks of the last decade of Rangers baseball, as a counterpart piece to last week’s look at the best extended runs Texas hitters have had the last 10 years, Lewis — who has been with the Rangers since 2010, settling in as a Special Assistant to GM Jon Daniels since retiring last November — seemed to be the right guy to bounce the query off of before running it through the analytics mill.
So, Colby, you were right at the center of the best run of baseball in Rangers franchise history. Hit me up with some starting pitchers the last 10 years who, for you, put the team on their backs for a month.
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“Ok. Give me a little time to think about it.”
Sure thing.
[Twenty-three hours pass.]
“Well, I don’t know. You can look up Matt Harrison. He was really good.”
OK, OK, this is good. Go on.
“Gosh, I don’t know. Feldman. Holland. CJ was great as well.”
Colby wasn’t exactly swinging out of his shoes at my center-cut, rolling breaking ball.
Darvish?
“Ya, for sure.”
Deciding to let Colby off the hook, I turned to another one of JD’s Special Assistants, another player who was around for virtually all of the last decade, first on the field and now in baseball operations.
Whatcha got, Michael Young?
“Really can’t think of one stretch that sticks out.”
That’s OK. We’re going to spread the wealth a bit in this story anyway. And — oh, wait . . . Michael’s not done.
“2011 was our best team. Great talent and we all had productive seasons.”
[Grabs popcorn.]
“Cliff was the clear superstar. Just an animal. But man, we had some grinders. Colby was a fighter, obviously. Just give him the ball and watch him battle. Harry [Matt Harrison], Holland, and Tommy [Hunter] knew they were the young guys who had to step up, and they did. CJ never got enough credit. Not easy to be a pen guy, then turn around and fire off 200 productive innings three straight years.”
Not that the World Series seasons were the only ones in which Rangers starters shoved, but it makes sense that a bunch of them would line this list. And they do.
When Rangers fans reflect on the recent playoff years, the tendency is to think of those teams as ones that could really hit. Less thought is probably given to the pitching side of things. Aside from two phenomenal playoff series out of Cliff Lee and one very big Neftali Feliz pitch (closing out a game that Lewis pitched eight brilliant innings in), the very good Rangers clubs were mostly identifiable offensively — but that’s no different from many other years, mediocre or worse, for this franchise. You can’t ignore the role of the Rangers’ pitching staffs in 2010 and 2011 and the seasons of 162+ that followed. The playoff teams may not have pitched loudly, but they pitched well.
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When assessing the club’s best hitting streaks, going with OPS seemed to be the right thing to do. It’s a fairly comprehensive metric that, even if not familiar to many fans until the last decade or so, does a good job of telling a deeper story than more familiar statistics.
The appropriate pitching measure isn’t as clear. We’re well past using wins to evaluate a starting pitcher’s worth, since they’re heavily dependent on a pitcher’s teammates (both those with bats and those that hang out in the bullpen). ERA does a better job but it also relies on teammates to an extent.
FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching), on the other hand, attempts to remove those external factors. As the folks at FanGraphs put it, FIP is “a measurement of a pitcher’s performance that strips out the role of defense, luck, and sequencing, making it a more stable indicator of how a pitcher actually performed over a given period of time than a runs allowed based statistic that would be highly dependent on the quality of defense played behind him, for example.”
Basically, FIP accounts for the “three true outcomes” — strikeouts, walks, and home runs (and adding hit batsmen to the walk category) — in trying to paint a more complete picture of a pitcher’s production.
So FIP it is.
Lewis, unflappable as always, didn’t offer at my dizzyingly ineffective pitch sequence. Young stepped in and effectively moved the runners along. With some analytics help from The Athletic’s Eno Sarris and Kevin Carter of Baseball Prospectus, I was ready to kick and deal.
We put a spotlight last week on the 20 best hitting stretches. So we’ll go 20-deep on the pitchers as well: that is, the 20 best months Texas starting pitchers have had, statistically, since 2009.
20. Scott Feldman, August 2009, 2.83 FIP
Only one pitcher (Matt Harrison in 2012) had a season in the last decade with more wins than Feldman’s 17 in 2009. He notched five of them in August, stretching his personal win streak with a pair of gems to start September. The former 30th-rounder’s timing was good; he was able to take the 17-8 campaign into his first arbitration off-season, resulting in the first $2.4 million of what has been a $50 million career.
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19. Alexi Ogando, June 2011, 2.83 FIP
Ogando played a prominent role in the Rangers’ two World Series seasons, which lined up with his first two years in the big leagues. He posted a 1.30 ERA as a rookie bullpenner, and followed it with an All-Star season as a starter. Wins over Cleveland and Detroit to start the month of June improved his record to 7-0, 2.10, and it was 9-3, 2.92 by the time he joined four teammates and Ron Washington on the AL All-Star Team. He faded somewhat in the second half and was repurposed in the playoffs, sent back to the Texas bullpen. Ogando was outstanding against Tampa Bay and Detroit, but the World Series (seven hits and seven walks in 2.2 innings over six appearances) did not go well for the 28-year-old.
18. C.J Wilson, June 2011, 2.81 FIP
Wilson, like Ogando a converted reliever (and also a 2011 All-Star), was very good in the same month, making five starts in which he got into the eighth inning on average. The only Wilson start that Texas dropped that June was a 3-2 loss in 12 innings in Yankee Stadium — Wilson went eight complete and fanned 10, the third time in a six-game stretch in which he set down double figures on strikes. This would be Wilson’s final June as a Ranger; after a post-season in which he went 0-3, 5.79 and walked 19 hitters in 28 very important innings, he and the Rangers each decided to move on, with Wilson taking $75 million over five years from the Angels that winter. He struck out 10 or more in a game four times in the four years he was healthy enough to suit up for Los Angeles. With the compensation pick the Rangers received for losing Wilson in free agency, they selected Joey Gallo.
17. Martin Perez, May 2017, 2.80 FIP
Yes — last year! Not a typo. The lefty recorded only one victory in this five-start stretch, and his ERA was an uninspiring 4.11, but the part of it that jumps out — the part that may have signaled that Perez, 26 at the time, was finally ready to find that extra gear that seemed to be just out of reach for so many years — was that in 30.2 innings in May 2017, he issued only four unintentional walks. He looked like he was trusting his stuff. Perez averaged 101 pitches in those five starts, and worked into the seventh in four of them. Seems like more than a year and a half ago.
16. Yu Darvish, August 2013, 2.79 FIP
Do you remember early-days Yu Darvish? In this six-start month, dissected by his 27th birthday, the righthander was absolutely ridiculous. He logged 43 innings, punching out 64. He scattered 30 hits and 13 walks, holding 166 hitters to a collective .196/.259/.340 slash line (and a sub-.600 OPS). All six starts were Quality Starts; in one of them he blanked Arizona (who was within striking distance of a playoff spot) on five hits and no walks over seven innings, fanning 14, and in another he carried a perfect game into the sixth and a no-hitter into the seventh, before Astros catcher (and future battery mate) Carlos Corporan homered. Darvish ended up striking out 15 in eight frames, with the one run allowed on the one hit and one walk. Yes, this is only the 16th-best month on this list. I’ll leave it to you to guess how many of the top 15 also belong to Darvish.
15. Martin Perez, April 2014, 2.76 FIP
If you’re able to remember early-days Darvish, I challenge you to think back to early-days Perez. This was the first full month of Perez’s first full year as a Major Leaguer. He started Game 2 of the season, days before turning 23, and to convey how good he was that first month in 2014, he got tagged for eight runs in 4.2 innings on April 29 — and the month nonetheless out-FIP’d the Darvish August from eight months earlier. The lefthander had one stretch of three games that was three outs short of back-to-back-to-back complete-game shutouts (holding Houston to five hits in eight scoreless frames, and then three-hitting both the White Sox and the A’s). Three weeks later: elbow inflammation . . . and Tommy John surgery. Four years later, he’s pitched his way out of a thin Rangers rotation, and Texas is reportedly set to buy out his not-outrageous $7.5 million club option for 2019.
14. Matt Harrison, September 2011, 2.73 FIP
Texas, looking to defend its 2010 pennant, held a 3.5-game edge on the AL West as the club entered the final month of the 2011 season. The 25-year-old Harrison had taken a 2.94 ERA into August before struggling in five starts that month (.315/.366/.459 opponents’ slash line, 6.51 ERA). The Rangers skipped his spot in the rotation, gave him a two-inning relief appearance to stay fresh, and returned him to the starting five as September arrived. He was excellent, going 4-0, 2.64 in five starts (.241/.283/.319), allowing only seven of 28 hits to go for extra bases (one home run). The next start Harrison would make would be in Game 4 of the ALDS against Tampa Bay, earning the lone playoff win of his career.
13. Yu Darvish, September 2016, 2.73 FIP
The year when Darvish returned from Tommy John surgery ended badly. He allowed four home runs in five innings in Game Two of the ALDS against Toronto — more longballs than he’d surrendered in five September starts (three) to finish the regular season. Darvish held batters to a .202/.273/.321 line that month, and was especially dominant in his two tune-up starts: seven scoreless innings (two singles, one walk, nine strikeouts) against Oakland and then six strong frames (one run on three hits and one walks, with 12 strikeouts) against Tampa Bay. Confidence was justifiably high going into a second Division Series against the Jays. But, alas, October was less kind than September had been.
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12. Scott Feldman, July 2012, 2.67 FIP
This is the equivalent to Mitch Moreland’s outlier 2013 stretch, when he hit .331/.374/.649 for two months but was unproductive enough the other four months to finish the season at .232/.299/.437. In Feldman’s July 2012 (3-0, 1.96, .244/.261/.349 opponents’ slash, one walk and 14 strikeouts in 23 innings), he pitched like the bad version of Moreland was hitting against him; but for the year, he went 6-11, 5.09 and was out of the rotation as the regular season — and his eight-year run with Texas — came to an end.
11. C.J. Wilson, September 2011, 2.65 FIP
Like Harrison, Wilson finished the 2011 regular season in a groove, going 3-1, 1.21 in six starts. The only one that wasn’t a Quality Start was his effort in Game 160, a scoreless two-inning tune-up effort heading into the post-season. Wilson held opponents to a .194/.273/.248 slash line in September, fanning 41 while walking a dozen in 37.1 innings as he wrapped up a season that would earn him a sixth-place finish in the AL Cy Young vote.
10. C.J. Wilson, August 2010, 2.50 FIP
This was a remarkably similar month to September 2011 in a couple respects, as Wilson held opponents to a .194 batting average and .273 on-base percentage this time as well. In this stretch, he went 4-0, 2.11, punching out 40 batters and issuing 15 walks in 38.1 innings. The blue-gloved lefty was better in this post-season, holding the Rays, Yankees, and Giants to a .191/.277/.382 line, making three very good starts out of four though he had only one victory to show for it — the lone playoff win of his career, in fact, in what was his first playoff start (6.1 shutout innings in Tampa Bay).
9. Yu Darvish, April 2014, 2.49 FIP
What would turn out to be a disappointing year for Darvish (shut down late with elbow inflammation) and the Rangers (95 losses) started off beautifully for the 27-year-old. It wasn’t until his 17th inning (two frames into his third start) that he permitted a run to score, and for the month Texas won four of his five starts. He wasn’t at his most K/BB-dominant (33 strikeouts and 10 walks in 31.1 innings), but he was really good, and a team coming off two World Series without him, and then a Wild Card berth and a Game 162 with him, had reason to believe that 2014 was going to be his year, and the team’s. Welp.
8. Cliff Lee, September 2010, 2.47 FIP
A bad Rangers debut (six Baltimore runs and three home runs) was followed by a very good month of work, after which Lee was fairly terrible for about three weeks (8.28 ERA over five starts). But then the 32-year-old got locked in, and in the September that led to the Cliff Lee October, he went 2-1, 1.93 in four starts, holding opponents to a .189/.233/.295 slash line. As for what would follow, this story isn’t about playoff baseball, but, when asked about insane pitching streaks, Michael Young wanted to talk about playoff baseball — and I suspect you’re OK that I didn’t cut him off:
“I’ll never forget Cliff before Game 5 in the 2010 ALDS. We knew we flat-out had a squad. Win two, drop two. We were pissed headed back to Tampa Bay for Game 5. The starter is usually the last guy headed to the ballpark. We had already been hanging in the clubhouse for a while, and Cliff strolls in. Gets to his locker, and knows we were all kind of staring at him. He turns around, looks at us, and says, ‘We’re good.’
“Never a doubt after that.
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“It was awesome. That’s the power starting pitchers have. They can literally win the game for you. And Cliff did.”
7. Yu Darvish, May 2014, 2.47 FIP
As strong as Darvish’s April 2014 was (two entries above), his May was even better. He went 3-1, 2.10 in four starts, holding the Angels, Red Sox, Blue Jays, and Tigers to a .185/.254/.296 line. Over 30 innings, Darvish fanned 38 and walked eight unintentionally, yielding two home runs — both (Erick Aybar and Albert Pujols) in the first inning he’d pitch that month, in a game the Rangers would pull out, 14-3. In his second start that May, Darvish blanked the Red Sox on two singles and two walks in 8.2 innings, punching out 12. It would result in the highest “Game Score” (90) of his career in games that weren’t against Houston.
6. Yovani Gallardo, June 2015, 2.44 FIP
Even if you didn’t watch last night’s effort in Los Angeles, I’d bet against you figuring Gallardo for a seat at the six-top heading up this decade-deep list. In five June starts the year Texas picked him up from Milwaukee for Corey Knebel, Luis Sardinas, and Marcos Diplan, the 29-year-old posted an ERA of 0.54, didn’t allow a home run in 33.1 innings (25 strikeouts and nine walks), and held opponents to a .174/.232/.200 line. The fifth victim was Toronto (8.1 scoreless innings at Rogers Centre, on three singles and two walks), a precursor to his ALDS Game One victory in the same building four months later.
5. Derek Holland, May 2013, 2.15 FIP
Holland had led the league in shutouts in 2011 and then fired the most important masterpiece in franchise history the same year. He wasn’t quite as effective in 2012, but he started strong in 2013, compiling a 2.81 ERA through a third of the season. That was highlighted by a six-start May in which he went 4-0, 2.31, struck out 44 in 39 frames while issuing only nine bases on balls, and surrendered only two home runs (both off the bat of Miguel Cabrera on his three-bomb night in Texas on May 19, an 11-8 Rangers win). From a FIP standpoint, the difference between Gallardo at #6 and Holland at #5 is the largest between any two entries on this list, making Holland part of a clear top 5.
4. Derek Holland, September 2014, 2.08 FIP
And he shows up twice, at that. It’s strange to include Holland’s September 2014 for a couple reasons; one, it came at the end of a brutal year, at a time when the focus was on Ron Washington walking away from the team once they’d been mathematically eliminated, and two, it was the only pitching Holland did all year, as he’d missed the first five months due to knee surgery. In 37 September innings, he posted a 1.46 ERA, fanning 25, walking four unintentionally, and keeping the ball in the park all month. The Rangers won four of Holland’s six starts. Maybe I should stop blaming Tim Bogar for Alex Bregman.
3. Colby Lewis, June 2012, 2.03 FIP
I gave Lewis the chance to raise his hand when I posed the original question, but he didn’t take the bait. He’s number three on this list, largely on the strength of limiting five opponents to a total of three walks and one home run in 34.2 innings of work. He held hitters to a .223/.244/.331 slash line that month, fanned 31, and posted a 3.38 ERA.
If I were to ask Lewis if he thinks Texas would have won the AL West had he not gotten hurt at the end of this month — coming down with tendinitis in the right forearm that was followed (one July start later) with a torn flexor tendon in his right elbow — he probably would have shrugged the suggestion off. And he would have been wrong. When Lewis (who was the Opening Day starter that season) was lost for the year, his starts went largely to Roy Oswalt and Ryan Dempster, who put up a 5.60 ERA between them. Texas limped to the end, fell into the Wild Card Game, and lost it.
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That wouldn’t have happened had Lewis been healthy in the second half. And, maybe, Kyle Hendricks would still be around.
2. Yu Darvish, September 2012, 1.89 FIP
Now Hendricks’s teammate, Darvish was in Arlington this week, where Rangers team physician Dr. Keith Meister performed arthroscopic surgery on his right elbow to clean out loose debris. He’s expected to be ready for his second spring training with the Cubs.
As for his finish to the 2012 season, he and Holland were the two Rangers starters not to get the ball in the brutal season-ending three-game series in Oakland that couldn’t have gone worse. Texas won four of Darvish’s five starts that September — and would have won the fifth had Joe Nathan not blown a save in Game One of a Sunday doubleheader that preceded the Oakland series. Darvish’s line for the month that completed his first Major League season: 3-0, 2.21, 39 strikeouts and seven walks in 36.2 innings, one home run (Mike Trout in the final inning of Darvish’s regular season), an extraordinary .160/.201/.232 opponents’ slash line.
1. Yu Darvish, April 2013, 1.63 FIP
That dominating month was followed by a Wild Card performance (three runs, two earned, on five singles and no walks in 6.2 innings, with seven strikeouts) that many felt Washington ended prematurely. Darvish’s next time to take the ball was in April 2013, and he proceeded to turn in the best month any Rangers starter has had, at least by the FIP measure, in the last decade. The 26-year-old started it by missing a perfect game by a pitch, as Marwin Gonzalez croqueted a ground single through the box with two outs in the ninth. By the end of the month, he had a 5-1, 2.33 record, he’d struck an insane 58 batters out in 38.2 innings, walking just 13, and had allowed just seven extra-base hits (one home run) among a mere 23 hits (.170/.258/.244) — and the Rangers were 17-9.
That’s the power starting pitchers have. They can literally win more than just a game for you.
EXIT VELO
- Short-Season-A Spokane fell to Eugene in the Northwest League finals, seeing its season end on a walk-off balk by closer Emmanuel Clase, who appeared to get a spike caught on the rubber as he was about to deliver a two-out, bases-loaded pitch. Clase had an extraordinary year (two earned runs all year — both in one game — and a .163/.212/.235 opponents’ slash line, 0.64 ERA, and 27 strikeouts, six walks, and 16 hits allowed in 28.1 innings) after coming over from San Diego in an April trade for AAA catcher Brett Nicholas.
- If the season were to end today, Texas would draft seventh next June.
