Texas Rangers Break Record for Position Players Pitching
The Texas Rangers face more position players on the mound than any team … ever.
The Los Angeles Angels sent third baseman Eduardo Escobar out for the ninth inning of Monday’s 12-0 Texas win, marking the record-breaking 11th time a position player has pitched against the Rangers this season. The previous MLB single-season mark was 10 set by the Atlanta Braves in 2021.
The American League West-leading Rangers (71-48) have 43 regular-season games left in 2023.
Texas’ previous position-player record for one season (excluding Shohei Ohtani) was three, done in 2014, 2018 and 2019.
Routs are almost always the reason for position players to take the hill. The series opener with the Angles was no different, with it being the Rangers’ largest shutout victory since Aug. 5, 2014 at the Chicago White Sox (16-0) and the largest blanking in Arlington since April 18, 2018, also against the White Sox (12-0).
And while the bats were doing their thing, the pitching was just as superb. The duo of Max Scherzer and Martín Pérez combined to allow just one hit, a single by Mike Moustakas in the second inning. It marked the second one-hitter thrown by the Rangers this season (April 17 at Kansas City) and the team’s first in Arlington since Aug. 23, 20210 against the Minnesota Twins (Rich Harden, Matt Harrison, Darren O’Day and Neftali Feliz.
The game also was the first in Washington/Texas franchise history in which the Senators/Rangers scored at least 12 runs while holding the opposition to one-or-zero hits.
Scherzer recorded a season-high 11 strikeouts over 7.0 shutout innings, earning his third win in as many starts with Texas. He matched his longest scoreless outing of the season and notched his 112th career double-digit strikeout game, third-most all-time behind only Hall of Famers Nolan Ryan (215) and Randy Johnson (212). Scherzer has gone 3-0 with a 1.80 ERA and 26 strikeouts/five walks for the Rangers.
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