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Rangers Ace Martín Pérez Seeks Even August
Martín Pérez hopes to even his record for August at 2-2 when he takes the mound for the Texas Rangers in their two-game series finale with Houston at 1:05 p.m. Wednesday.
Pérez is coming off his first victory of the month last week against Colorado. He threw six innings of four-hit, shutout baseball against the Rockies, walking one and striking out seven in a 16-4 victory. That was his sixth scoreless start of the season. Only Houston’s Justin Verlander has more (seven).
Texas lost to Houston 4-2 on Tuesday night.
For the month, Pérez is 1-2 in five starts and saw his nine-game winning streak snapped in his last start against Houston on Aug. 9. At Minute Maid Park, he pitched five innings, gave up six hits and a season-high seven runs.
Pérez enters his 26th start of the season coming off three straight quality starts, and has quality starts in six of his last seven starts. He’s among American League leaders in innings pitched (fifth, 154), bWAR (third, 4.2) and ERA (seventh, 2.69). His 10-4 record is best in the Rangers’ starting rotation.
He now has 139 strikeouts, which is a career-high for Pérez.
Pérez is 1-1 with a 3.43 ERA against Houston. But seven of the eight earned runs he’s allowed to the Astros came in his start earlier this month.
When Pérez faced the Astros at Globe Life Field on April 28, he threw seven innings and gave up two hits and an earned run. He faced the Astros again on May 20 and threw a complete-game shutout, giving up eight hits, one walk and struck out five.
Pérez was named the American League Pitcher of the Month in May. From April 23-May 31, he went undefeated in eight starts with six or more innings pitched in each outing while not allowing a home run and one or no earned runs in each game. The only other pitchers to do that since 1931 are Hall of Famers Walter Johnson (1913-14) and Bob Gibson (1968).
At one point he had a streak of 19 consecutive starts without taking a loss (April 23-Aug. 3), which is the longest streak in Major League Baseball this season and tied for the longest run in franchise history (Cole Hamels in 2015-16).
Texas is 17-8 in his 25 starts, losing three of their last five, but winning 10 of 14 and 16 of last 21.
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