Texas Rangers Help Is Here: Enter SP Colby Lewis

The Texas Rangers have been without 2 starting pitchers for 60 days with Derek Holland and Colby Lewis out. Derek Holland has been effective in his recent return, can Colby Lewis copy that production?

That is right, Texas Rangers Colby Lewis is set to start Sunday vs the Angels. This will be the first game he has played since being placed on the 60-day DL after his June 21st start. Lewis had been the best pitcher for the Rangers up to that point of the season with a 6-1 record and a 3.21 ERA.

Not only had Colby Lewis deserved consideration for an All-Star spot but the start prior to his injury, he had nearly pitched a perfect game taking it deep into the late innings.

The addition of Lewis to the starting rotation brings up a lot of questions of who may be bumped out or if it will turn into a 6-man rotation. Jeff Banister was asked these questions in an interview on local radio station 105.3 The Fan, his answer suggested something that hadn’t been in the conversation much.

Banister all but dismissed the 6-man rotation but made it sound like a rotation that has someone skip a start may happen. This rest may be dividends heading into the playoffs, especially with the recent starts by Yu Darvish, Cole Hamels, and last nights mess from A.J. Griffin. 

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The last starts from those 3 pitchers ended up in only 10 innings pitched, 20 earned runs, and an combined average of 24.5 pitches per inning. That is 2 marquee aces in Darvish and Hamels, then a hot and cold pitcher in Griffin but these are guys who have performed well during the year. There’s no answer for why they didn’t perform well recently but it was strange that Darvish made comments that he felt Houston knew what he was going to throw.

The addition of Lewis this weekend might also bring a little more grit or moxy to the lineup because when you look up grit in the dictionary, it is just a picture of Colby Lewis. The hope is to ease Lewis into the rotation and have him ready for the playoffs because his track record in post season has been good, even if he didn’t get the nod last year.

If this situation is managed correctly by the Texas Rangers, then they could be faced with the problem of having to bump someone how is pitching well from the playoff rotation. As a Ranger fan, you should hope that that happens because its a good problem to have.

What do you think will happen throughout the rest of the season? Who would your playoff rotation consist of?