{"id":189237,"date":"2025-07-20T03:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T03:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/189237\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T03:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T03:35:09","slug":"kumar-rockers-one-hit-performance-lifts-rangers-over-al-best-detroit-and-above-500","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/189237\/","title":{"rendered":"Kumar Rocker\u2019s one-hit performance lifts Rangers over AL-best Detroit and above .500"},"content":{"rendered":"

ARLINGTON – Kumar Rocker<\/a> has talent, stuff and command to dominate games. It\u2019s why the Rangers<\/a> made him the third pick in the draft three years ago and why he was on the lips of every scout as a high school and college pitcher. That he\u2019s now doing it is not surprising at all, nor is it surprising that it took a minor league demotion to help him get over some obstacles. <\/p>\n

What\u2019s surprising is that he seemed to fix it all over the course of one minor league start.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018I\u2019m amazed,\u201d is the way Bruce Bochy<\/a>, a guy with so much experience in 50 years of baseball, it\u2019s physically impossible to amaze him, put it Saturday.<\/p>\n

And that was before Rocker allowed the team with the best record in the AL a single hit in the Rangers\u2019 4-1 win over Detroit. It pushed the Rangers to 50-49, the first time they\u2019ve been above .500 in two months. Remarkable as it was to get back over the hump, it still wasn\u2019t the most remarkable development of the day. Until proven otherwise, Rocker will own that category every time he pitches. <\/p>\n

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Since returning, he\u2019s 3-0 with a 3.34 ERA and has held teams to a .207 batting average. Compare that to the Rocker of the first two months of the season: An 8.87 ERA and a .346 opponents batting average. Also: A marked inability to field his position or hold runners. <\/p>\n

The Rangers addressed all this with Rocker when they sent him out after a rough start in Tampa<\/a> when he made two fielding mistakes that led to runs and didn\u2019t get through the fourth inning. It was clear then that the lack of minor league experience brought on by missing much of two years recovering from elbow surgery had made him an unfinished pitcher. There were things that needed to be addressed. And the thought was that it would take some time. <\/p>\n

More than a week. <\/p>\n

When they sent him down, they were direct. He was too slow to the plate. He needed to better mix his pitches. He needed to be more game aware. It was a lot. It wasn\u2019t meant to be delivered bluntly nor was the move meant to be punitive. But it was necessary. <\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes you\u2019ve got to be point blank about it,\u201d pitching coach Mike Maddux said. \u201cYou always try to motivate, but sometimes motivation comes in the form of putting somebody in time out. It\u2019s like parenting kids. You don\u2019t want to do it, but sometimes you have to. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe sent him out and gave him a directive: This is what you have to do. And to his credit, he did all those things. I just think he was enlightened to the fact that there is more to the game than just your ability to throw.\u201d <\/p>\n

One way to not have to deal with the running game: Not allow runners. On Saturday, Rocker allowed only a walk to Gleyber Torres in the first three innings. In the third, he fielded a pair of grounders to help himself out of the inning. <\/p>\n

In the fourth, he allowed back-to-back walks to start things, but rallied himself through a 31-pitch inning, getting Riley Greene to fly out on a fastball after setting him up with cutters, striking out Spencer Torkelson on a sinker at the bottom of the zone and mixing cutters and sinkers to Zach McKinstry until he dribbled one slowly back to the mound. Rocker fielded it and tossed to first. Then he started the fifth by getting to first to take a throw from Rowdy Tellez. Eight batters: Four perfect fielding plays. <\/p>\n

It all seemed so illustrative of the difference in Rocker. The game does not speed up on him at the moment, nor does he dawdle. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a change of perspective being down there,\u201d said Rocker in his typically brief tone. \u201cI was a little bit more free, come up with a game plan and execute. I\u2019ve come back here and tried to do the same thing. Copy and paste.\u201d<\/p>\n

But what allowed for the changes to be realized so quickly? <\/p>\n

\u201cJust being able to just pitch and keep experiencing things and just find ways to get better,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m still learning. I\u2019m just being a human being, seeing it and living it.\u201dWell, and apparently hearing it, too. <\/p>\n

Find more Rangers coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Click or tap here to sign up for our Rangers newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON – Kumar Rocker has talent, stuff and command to dominate games. It\u2019s why the Rangers made him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2393],"tags":[5,3321,360,4,149,185,1567,69,3240],"class_list":{"0":"post-189237","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas-rangers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-bruce-bochy","10":"tag-kumar-rocker","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-rangers","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-texas-rangers","16":"tag-texasrangers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114883469334429758","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}