Colby Lewis has been one of the best surprises of this season so far. However, tonight in Detroit, he was more pedestrian. It’s not like he was totally awful, he looked at times to be well, but he labored a bit, and was just “eh”. His mound opponent (Max Scherzer) pitched more like 2010 Colby Lewis than the actual Colby Lewis pitched.
Colby’s line ended up with seven innings pitched with nine hits, two walks, and four earned runs with 103 pitches thrown. Not horrendous, but not a lot like the 2010 edition of Colby Lewis we’ve known so far. He even allowed a home run to former Ranger Gerald Laird, a two run bomb that was a true Detroit home run, not one in front of the old left field wall in the new home run area. :)
Scherzer on the other hand went seven, giving up just four hits and three walks, but more importantly, no runs. Matt threw a LOT more pitches, 123 in all over seven, which is 17.5 an inning on average. Too many. But he got it done where it counted – no runs allowed.
All four hits that the Rangers got were off the Detroit starter. One of which was a triple by Michael Young, and the others were singles by Nelson Cruz, Elvis Andrus, & Ian Kisler. That was it. No other offense to speak of. The one run we did get wasn’t even on one of those hits, it was a ground out RBI by Josh Hamilton in the top of the ninth.
So we were pretty effectively shut down. But still, we took 2-3 in Detroit, and 5-2 for the road trip where I think most people expected 2 out of 7 (or worse). We’re feeling good coming home, even with a series finale loss.
