MacKenzie Gore’s Growth as Rangers Starter Evident in Royals Victory

The Texas Rangers need left-hander MacKenzie Gore to pitch more like this for the next four months to have a shot at the postseason.

Texas Rangers starting pitcher MacKenzie Gore. | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

ARLINGTON, Texas — MacKenzie Gore was excellent for the Texas Rangers on Friday. But it was the little things that underscored just how good his outing really was.

Gore (4-4) claimed the win in the Rangers, 9-1 victory over the Kansas City Royals. The left-hander had more than enough run support, but he was also highly effective. He gave up four hits and no runs as he struck out three and walked one.

He lived in the strike zone most of the game. He threw 99 pitches, 63 of which were strikes. Batters swung at 42 pitches and while he only induced seven whiffs, he also had 21 called strikes.

“He was on the attack,” Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said. “I think that was the biggest thing I saw today. There wasn’t a ton of swing and miss but it was a lot of fastballs in the zone.”

It was also Gore’s ability to adjust after missed location that played a role in the start as well.

MacKenzie Gore’s In-Game Adjustments

Texas Rangers starting pitcher MacKenzie Gore. | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

Early in the game his ability to adjust the same pitch was evident. The second batter he faced was Kansas City shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. Gore through him a curveball in the dirt at 81.7 mph.

Ordinarily a pitch that misses that badly might cause a pitcher to move to a different part of his arsenal. Instead, Gore and his catcher, Danny Jansen, stuck with the curveball and he stuck it in the top half of the zone for a strike.

The velocity and the action were the same. But Gore made a key adjustment to throw it for a strike and set up his next pitch, a 96-mph fastball that Witt lined out to center field.

He did it again in the second inning against Royals slugger Jac Caglianone. Gore was ahead in the count 2-1 when he threw an 87-mph slider to Caglianone. It ended up in the dirt inside the strike zone. Again, Gore adjusted and went back to the same pitch.

This slider was the same velocity, but it induced a swing and a miss from Caglianone for a strikeout. The pitch located in the bottom part of the strike zone, just enough to entire him to swing.

Those adjustments kept the Royals off-balance. He also did it with control as evidenced by the fact that he didn't allow a walk until the seventh inning.

“I thought we left some curveballs overplayed with two strikes, especially early in the game,” Gore said. “But, just understanding what the miss is and what the adjustment is — we did that.”

Throw out his one-inning start against Colorado on May 18 — a game he left with left lat tightness — and Gore has been excellent since May 12. In the three starts aside from the Rockies game, he’s pitched 20.1 innings and given up eight hits and two earned runs. He’s struck out 15 and walked four.

Before that, he allowed eight earned runs in nine innings in his first two starts of May. He’s clearly found something as May ends.

“He made the adjustment pitch to pitch today,” Schumaker said. “And it was really good to see.”