Jacob deGrom fired seven shutout innings as the Texas Rangers beat the Athletics 8-1 at Globe Life Field on Monday night.
ARLINGTON, Texas -- Texas Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said he felt like Jacob deGrom's month of August has been filled with ups and downs.
On Monday night, deGrom made sure to not only end the month on a high note but also turn in his best start of the season in the Rangers' 8-1 win over the Athletics.
deGrom fired seven shutout innings, allowing just one hit with eight strikeouts while facing the minimum.
Lawrence Butler’s leadoff single in the second inning was the lone blemish against deGrom, who would retire 17 straight batters after that point to close out his outing.
“I just had to get ahead on strike one and go from there; that was the main goal,” deGrom said after the game.
“Danny [Jansen] did a nice job; we were on the same page all night, and we just had a good mix whether it was slider strikes, changeup strikes. I don’t know if we threw a curveball for strike one, but anyway, we mixed it up throughout the night and were able to throw strikes. I think that was the biggest thing: just location and being ahead and going right after guys.
“That’s what I knew I needed to do and that’s what I was trying to do in the last [start], I just wasn’t able to so I came in and was really trying to see how many times I could hit the glove tonight” deGrom finished.
For deGrom, the outing marked his 12th carrer start of 7.0 + SHO IP, 8+ SO, and 0BB. That’s the tied for the second most such starts in MLB over that span.
A key to deGrom’s success was his increased sinker usage. The Rangers ace threw more sinkers than he has during any start this season and was able to execute it to hitters on both sides of the plate.
“I just told Danny, let’s just see how it is in the bullpen and talking about the hitters before the game, there were some guys we thought it would be useful to throw it to," deGrom said.
"I had a good feel for it in the bullpen, I was locating it well so coming into to Danny I said we could run it off to some of those lefties especially if we’ve gone backdoor slider for just a change of look from how I normally pitch and having a good feel for it, I was confident in throwing it tonight.”
The Rangers offense provided deGrom plenty of support as they struck for a pair of runs in the second followed by back to back one run innings in the third and fourth, a three spot in the fifth and an insurance run in the eighth.
“It was a good complete team win, something that we’ve hoped for over that road trip” Schumaker said.
“We’ve had some good starts and tough offensive days and some really good offensive days and some tough starts from our starting pitchers so for Jacob to go out and do what he did, seven innings of one hit ball was exactly what we needed…”
