Elite pitching keeping Rangers afloat despite offensive struggles to start 2025

It's very much against the norm of a Texas Rangers baseball team but somehow the pitching has been the star of the show to kick off the regular season this year.

Entering Wednesday's afternoon matchup against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley, the Rangers are 8-4, which is among the best in the American League. All being done while the team is only scoring on average three runs a game.

How is that possible? Well, the pitching (starters and relievers) have been one of the best collective groups in Major League Baseball through the first 12 games of 2025. As a whole, the group has the fourth-best ERA in the AL at 3.60, despite surrendering 17 games to the Cubs the past two days.

The Rangers' starting rotation is setting the table for the bullpen to finish the job

The success starts up top with their ace of the club, Nathan Eovaldi. Yes, Evo is still the ace of this rotation. Despite the tough 4 2/3 innings on Monday, he only gave up three runs in the outing which fans know is not typical of Nate.

Eovaldi still has a 2.29 ERA and a WHIP below 1.00 in nearly 20 innings pitched this season. His complete game shutout on April 1 in Cincinnati was MLB's first Maddux (complete game, shutout, less than 100 pitches) of this season.

After that you have a few complimentary pieces, the one with the best story thus far is Jack Leiter. The former first-round pick, Leiter struggled in his limited opportunities with the big league club last season. While he looked better this spring no one expected that they would get this level of performance from him to start.

In his 10 innings of work, the 25-year-old is 2-0 with a 0.90 ERA, 0.70 WHIP, one run, 10 strikeouts and most importantly only one walk. His latest start against the Reds was without a doubt the best of his career, only giving up one hit in five innings. The unfortunate thing is that Leiter left that game early and was placed on the 15-Day IL due to a blister forming on his right middle finger. While not serious, he is set to miss his next couple of times in the rotation.

Tyler Mahle also is providing some quality innings. Outside of his bad first outing against Boston, he turned the corner to throw five scoreless in the second game of Texas's weekend sweep against Tampa Bay this past weekend.

Then of course Jacob deGrom. While his second start wasn't as strong, he still mustered 5 2/3 quality innings to help Texas get the 6-4 win over the Rays on Saturday. No matter what, as long as deGrom is healthy you can always count on the two-time Cy Young winner go out and put your team in the best spot to win a baseball game.

Bullpen is doing its job and closing out the masterpieces started by the starters

The late-inning trio of Robert Garcia, Chris Martin and Luke Jackson, against all odds have been one of the best trios in the league to start the season. Jackson in particular is tied for the most saves (5) with San Diego's Robert Suarez.

Garcia and Martin also have a 1.80 and 0.00 ERA, respectively. The Cubs did score four runs during Martin's one inning of relief of Tuesday but went unearned due to a pair of errors from Leody Taveras and Josh Jung.

One of the more underrated arms in the Texas bullpen is lanky left-hander Hoby Milner, who also is yet to surrender a run in his 4 1/3 innings of work this season. It's much needed after Milner finished spring with an ERA over 12.00 and opponents hitting .419 against him.

It could still be better with Shawn Armstrong and Jacob Webb struggling to start the year. The team might get a boost from the recent call-up of Caleb Boushley and if they were smart, they'd make it official and select Emiliano Teodo's contract from Round Rock.

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