The Texas Rangers scored four runs while the Detroit Tigers scored one run.
Presumably if you’re reading this, you’re a Texas Rangers fan. Assuming that, you’re pretty lucky. Maybe for such a strange franchise it doesn’t always feel that way but it’s true!
Your baseball fan bingo card is soaked in ink on nearly every square. You’ve seen all the highs and all the lows. From October tragedy to triumph. Division titles and heartbreaking finishes. Miserable eras to dominant stretches. MVPs and Rookies
or the Year. Perfection and failure. No-hitters and last out history-erasers. Phenoms and fizzle outs.
You’re missing two achievements, however. No Texas Rangers pitcher has ever won a Cy Young award and it really hasn’t been that close since Ferguson Jenkins finished second in his first season with Texas in Texas’ third season of existence back in 1974. This is the holy grail. A seemingly impossible task for this franchise. It is tied intrinsically to the other thing you’re missing for a blackout.
The Rangers haven’t been able to draft a first-round pitcher and turn him into an elite starting pitcher which is to say nothing of their overall poor ability to develop starting pitching. The closest they’ve come to accomplishing a first-round ace is Kevin Brown. Brown was the #4 overall selection back in 1986 and he spent eight years with Texas, making one All-Star team while topping out with a 4.8 bWAR season for the Rangers back in 1992.
In total, Brown accrued 17.7 bWAR with Texas, which no longer even ranks in the franchise top 25 players. Brown’s best years, and when he became a Hall of Fame candidate, came after he left Arlington. He was very good and obviously a develop success story but most of his promise was delivered upon elsewhere.
So now with Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker firmly entrenched in the rotation, the two Vandy hurlers who went #2 and #3 overall in back-to-back drafts for Texas, are the next opportunity for the Rangers to secure something we haven’t seen.
It will take a lot of years to see how that plays out, but for tonight, Rocker gave us a taste as he allowed just one hit while pitching into the seventh inning. The 2022 first-rounder took a no-hitter into the sixth inning and enjoyed his best outing as a big leaguer with zero runs, three walks, and five strikeouts in his 6 1⁄3 innings of work.
The Rangers hadn’t allowed a run after the All-Star break overall until the ninth inning tonight and after scoring early to give Rocker the room to throw up a bunch of zeroes, they’ve moved above .500 for the first time in two months. Something for you 2025 bingo card.
Player of the Game: Aside from Rocker, who was definitely the star tonight, the Rangers got their early runs from an unlikely source as the recently elevated Rowdy Tellez hit a three-run bomb to the left of the Texas bullpen.
Rowdy Tellez makes a great first impression in Texas! pic.twitter.com/duLopGqFhZ
— MLB (@MLB) July 19, 2025
The Rangers have had a miserable time getting production from first base this season, and though the journeyman Tellez likely isn’t the long term answer, for now, we’ll take the game-altering blasts when we get ‘em.
Up Next: The Rangers go for a series sweep of the Tigers in one of the season’s marquee matchups. RHP Nathan Eovaldi will make his first start of the season half after an All-Star team snub opposite LHP Tarik Skubal fresh off starting the All-Star game a season after winning the AL Cy Young award.
The Sunday evening first pitch from The Shed is scheduled for 6:10 pm CT and will be aired on ESPN.
