ARLINGTON — Rangers right-handed pitcher Jack Leiter’s three at-bats against baseball’s statistically best hitter this season mirrored the first three months of his second full big league season.  

The first proved what Leiter can do at his best.  

The second proved what can happen when he isn’t.

The third proved why his manager speaks about the 26 year old like this.  

“I still think Jack is going to be an ace in this game,” Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said. “I really do. I think the stuff is so real, the preparation is real, the want to be great [is real]. I’m a big fan of Jack and I think he’s just still learning how to pitch.” 

Leiter, who recorded his first win in nearly two months vs. the Houston Astros at Globe Life Field Tuesday night, allowed four runs in six innings and complemented an eight-run first frame from his teammates to halt a four-game winless drought. His three duels vs. Astros designated hitter Yordan Alvarez — a strikeout, a three-run home run and another strikeout — defined the night. His 4.75 ERA in 60 2/3 innings this season is the culmination of several fantastic starts (like the seven frames of one-run ball he pitched against the Astros last week) and several ones which signal the need for continued development (like the dozen total runs he allowed across three-straight starts earlier this month). 

Leiter, in his first at-bat vs. Alvarez, attacked with four-seam fastballs. He threw three in the strike zone, two of which were dead center, and got Alvarez to swing-and-miss at one knee high for his first of four strikeouts. Opponents have hit just .220 and whiffed on nearly a fifth of all swings when Leiter throws his upper-90’s fastball in the strike zone, and in a game like Tuesday’s in which he “didn’t quite have” his secondary pitches, as Schumaker said, the need to wield his heater increases. 

His second at-bat against Alvarez, in the third inning with two outs and two runners on, lasted one pitch. Leiter hung a changeup, which StatCast classified as a slider because of how it moved, and Alvarez pulled it 449 feet into right-center field for a three-run home run. Leiter described his arsenal as “out of whack,” struggled to find the feel for his usually effective changeup and had already thrown 23 pitches that frame before Alvarez came to the plate. He then loaded the bases in the fourth inning on two singles and a walk and hit catcher César Salazar with his changeup to drive in a fourth run. 

“Sometimes there’s just a lot of factors,” Leiter said. “It could be physically out of sync, and then it leads into mentally, trying to reset and getting back to being on the attack. The thing that I feel happiest and most proud about my outing today is being able to lock it back in for that fifth and sixth. It almost felt like I was a reliever for myself in that everything flipped and I was back on the attack.”

The fact that Leiter was able to face Alvarez a third time represented his ability to shift gears mid-game. Schumaker aknowledged that in the fourth inning, when the bases were loaded, he was prepared to replace Leiter with left-handed pitcher Jalen Beeks if Alvarez came to bat. Leiter, after he plunked Salazar, got shortstop Jeremy Pena to fly out on one pitch and third baseman Isaac Paredes to pop out after five. In the fifth, against Alvarez for the final time, Leiter struck the three-time All-Star out on five pitches and dotted his cutter in the top of the zone for consecutive whiffs to end the at-bat. Alvarez was the third of eight consecutive batters that Leiter retired to finish his start.

“The ball was coming out how I wanted it to and I was forcing them to swing early and often,” Leiter said. “That’s kind of what you want to do until pitch one until the end. That’s obviously the intention going forward.”