Coming into play on Wednesday night, the Texas Rangers bullpen was very thin.

After being down both Chris Martin and Luke Jackson to injury, as well as Hoby Milner after he threw 2.1 innings on Tuesday, the Rangers needed some quality length from their starter.

When Patrick Corbin signed with the Rangers, not many predicted that he would be a shoo-in to deliver that, but that’s exactly what he did.

Corbin fired his second consecutive quality start, going six innings, allowing just four hits and three runs while striking out nine and earning his third win of the season in the Rangers 8-3 win over the Rockies.

“Good mix, another really nice quality start,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said of Corbin after the game.

“He’s done a terrific job since we’ve gotten him. You know, he’s got pitchability, he’s got the sinker, he goes in and out with it and offspeed pitches, he has a good feel out there and just a nice job of pitching and that’s what he does so well and he adjusts to the swings, he’s got great game awareness and so he’s really continued where he finished off last year in the second half”.

Corbin’s nine strikeouts were his most in a game since 6/28/23, when he also had nine against the Seattle Mariners as a member of the Washington Nationals. In the 4th and 5th innings, Corbin struck out six consecutive batters, marking a career high.

Run support was not an issue for Corbin tonight as Texas scored early and often, racking up 8 runs on 11 hits.

Once again, it didn’t take long for the offense to get going as Wyatt Langford lined a two-run home run just over the right field wall in the first inning. Later in the frame, Josh Jung drew a bases-loaded walk and Evan Carter delivered an RBI groundout to give Texas a four-spot in the first inning.

Texas has now scored 3+ runs in the first inning of back-to-back games for the first time since 7/13/22 vs OAK and 7/14/22 vs SEA. The Rangers five hits in the first were the most in an opening inning since 9/5/24 vs LAA.

“Just coming out with that mindset, man, that first inning’s big too,” Bochy said. “We’re getting after it and sometimes you try to, you talk about it a lot as far as coming out and being ready to go but you know they’re trying to get a feel too but it’s important they stay on and try to attack and that’s from the first inning on and they did a great job in this series”.

In the fifth inning, Jake Burger put the game away as he smoked a two-RBI double into the right field gap at 108.3 MPH off the bat. He has now hit safely in three games since being recalled from AAA Round Rock.
With the sweep, Texas marks its third undefeated series of the year and its fifth consecutive win. Despite it coming against the now 7-36 Colorado Rockies, Bochy knows how important it is.

“Really good job of coming out early, they came out ready to play ball and jumped out early here in this series,” Bochy said. “They came out and played well, good series, good pitching, timely hitting, got the long ball”.