{"id":39721,"date":"2025-05-19T21:53:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T21:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/39721\/"},"modified":"2025-05-19T21:53:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T21:53:09","slug":"the-texas-rangers-rotation-is-off-to-a-historic-start-is-it-sustainable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/39721\/","title":{"rendered":"The Texas Rangers rotation is off to a historic start. Is it sustainable?"},"content":{"rendered":"

ARLINGTON \u2014 The Texas Rangers<\/a>\u2019 offense had such well-documented struggles in the first month-and-a-half of the regular season that a coach lost his job before Memorial Day<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Their bullpen, pieced together this offseason, has been largely a non-issue but finally showed signs of wear and tear on this most recent homestand<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Their starting rotation \u2014 which has been reliant on three recent elbow surgery survivors, an unproven rookie and a March signee with an ice cold Baseball Savant page in recent years \u2014 has been undeniably one of baseball\u2019s best staffs. <\/p>\n

Go figure. It does beg a question: How long can the Rangers\u2019 starting rotation and their American League-best 2.83 ERA keep this up for? <\/p>\n

Rangers<\/p>\n

Be the smartest Rangers fan. Get the latest news.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I think it\u2019s been going on for a while now,\u201d Rangers manager Bruce Bochy<\/a> said before Sunday\u2019s 4-3 loss vs. the Houston Astros at Globe Life Field. \u201cSo there\u2019s no reason why it can\u2019t keep going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fair, but, the differences between possibility and probability are vast. Possibilities are endless and account for the fact that these Rangers could field one of the best rotations in modern baseball history. Probabilities, and specifically historical data, imply that it won\u2019t be that easy. <\/p>\n

The 2022 Los Angeles Dodgers rotation \u2014 which finished the season with a remarkable 2.75 ERA \u2014 is the only staff in the Wild Card era to finish the year with a 2.80 ERA or better. That Dodgers rotation was one of just seven since 1995 to finish the season with a 3.00 ERA or better. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say that ample teams haven\u2019t been on track to do so. Twenty-one different rotations have yielded a 3.00 ERA or better through May since the start of the 2010 season. Only four \u2014 the Dodgers (2021-22), the Chicago Cubs (2016) and the St. Louis Cardinals (2015) \u2014 finished those respective seasons with a 3.00 ERA or below. <\/p>\n

The lesson to take away is that it\u2019s incredibly difficult to maintain that level of elite performance for 162 games. Bochy is as cognizant of that as anyone. His title-winning San Francisco Giants teams were anchored by strong rotations and Cy Young award candidates. Even the best of that era\u2019s staffs, though, did not start their season as well as this Rangers\u2019 one has. <\/p>\n

The 2011 Giants rotation, whose 3.28 ERA was the best of any during Bochy\u2019s tenure, had a 3.21 ERA in its first 48 games of the season. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had some good staffs,\u201d Bochy said. \u201cThey\u2019re right up there. The numbers will tell you that with what they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rangers boast three starting pitchers ranked within the top 10 ERA leaders leaguewide in right-handers Tyler Mahle (1.43 ERA), Nathan Eovaldi (1.61 ERA) and Jacob deGrom (2.29 ERA). No other team has more than one pitcher in the top 10. <\/p>\n

Left-handed starter Patrick Corbin, whom the Rangers signed at the tail end of spring training to bolster their rotational depth, is within the top 40 with his 3.35 ERA and diversified arsenal of pitches<\/a>. Right-hander Jack Leiter \u2014 the outlier of the quintet with a 4.25 ERA \u2014 took a no-hitter into the seventh inning vs. the Astros Sunday afternoon. <\/p>\n

Related:How the cutter has made Texas Rangers starter Patrick Corbin a comeback story<\/a><\/p>\n

The Rangers\u2019 rotation has thrown the fourth-most quality starts leaguewide this season (21) and has allowed more than three earned runs in a game just three times since April 23. Their 2.49 ERA in the 24 games since then is the best mark in baseball. Thirteen of those games have included a quality start. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can command the ball, if you have your stuff, you\u2019re going to have success,\u201d Bochy said. \u201cI don\u2019t look at this as a fluke. Now, if you talk about the middle of April, [it\u2019s different], but we\u2019re getting deep into May now. They\u2019re all still dealing very nicely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Texas Rangers claim utility infielder on waivers; DFA Jonathan Ornelas<\/a>5 things we learned about the Rangers this week: Attack of Jack Leiter, Burger bashing<\/a><\/p>\n

Find more Rangers coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON \u2014 The Texas Rangers\u2019 offense had such well-documented struggles in the first month-and-a-half of the regular season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2393],"tags":[4805,5,721,403,360,4,394,149,1567,69,3240,91],"class_list":{"0":"post-39721","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas-rangers","8":"tag-article","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-jack-leiter","11":"tag-jacob-degrom","12":"tag-kumar-rocker","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-nathan-eovaldi","15":"tag-rangers","16":"tag-texas","17":"tag-texas-rangers","18":"tag-texasrangers","19":"tag-tyler-mahle"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114536723712597163","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39721","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=39721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}