The Tampa Bay Rays are running out of superlatives to describe the way Tyler Glasnow is pitching.
The hard-throwing right-hander struck out a career-high 14 in 7-2/3 innings and Willy Adames homered in the seventh to help the American League champions beat the sputtering Texas Rangers 1-0 on Monday.
Glasnow (1-0) allowed two hits and got his first win of the season after pitching well but not being involved in decisions in two previous starts. He allowed Eli White’s single up the middle off the glove of diving second baseman Brandon Lowe with one out in the fifth and Jose Trevino’s leadoff single in the eighth.
Photo: AFP
“That was unbelievable. He’s going right at hitters,” said centerfielder Brett Phillips, who made a couple of nice defensive plays — one a sliding catch to rob White of a hit in the second inning, the other on a Trevino fourth-inning fly ball he ran down on the warning track in left-center.
“Outside of those, I could have put a lounge chair out there, put my head back and maybe got a water or something and watched him do his thing,” Phillips said. “That’s how impressive it was playing behind him.”
Adames homered off Taylor Hearn (0-1) with two outs in the seventh, just the third hit yielded by Texas pitchers. Rangers starter Dane Dunning limited the Rays to a pair of doubles in the first two innings before being replaced by Hearn at the start of the fifth.
Glasnow improved to 6-0 over his last 11 regular season games, and Tampa Bay have gone 10-1 in the those games.
The 2m-tall right-hander allowed one hit in six innings on opening day, exiting a scoreless tie before the Rays went on to win 1-0 at Miami. He yielded one run and four hits over six innings at Boston on April 6, departing with a 3-1 lead the Rays were unable to hold before losing in extra innings.
“If he continues to do what he’s been doing,” Adames said, “he’s going to be, if not the best, then top two” in the American League.
“I think every night he takes the ball, if he’s healthy, he has a chance to do something special,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said.
Texas was shut out for the third time in four games.
The Rangers’ offensive struggles carried over from a six-game homestand in which they scored just 15 runs and batted .193 as a team.
Glasnow did not make it any easier for them.
The Rays ace struck out the side in the first, third and sixth innings.
“The guy has elite stuff... He’s really tough to hit,” Rangers manager Chris Woodward said, adding that his young hitters are still learning what it takes to be successful against some of the game’s best pitching.
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