New face stars as Rangers' bullpen goes 'all hands on deck'

ARLINGTON -- When Rangers manager Skip Schumaker walked out to the mound in the middle of the fifth inning on Friday night, only one thing was on his mind.

“How am I going to get through the rest of this game?” he said. “You start counting outs.”

Rangers second-year starting pitcher Kumar Rocker allowed one run in 4 1/3 innings, running into yet another speed bump in the fifth inning. But it was an already taxed bullpen that picked him up to help the Rangers to a 7-1 victory over the Blue Jays at Globe Life Field.

The win, coupled with the Astros’ loss to the Braves, allowed the Rangers to pull back even with Houston in the American League West at 77-77, while sitting one game back of the White Sox (78-76) final AL Wild Card spot. The Astros hold the tiebreaker over the Rangers after taking the season series, 9-4.

“After some tough losses lately, a different clubhouse could go in a different direction,” Schumaker said, referring to Thursday night’s late loss to the Red Sox. “With those guys in there, I was confident that they were going to turn the page quickly, come in with their heads high and ready to play the next day. They did exactly that.

"We could have easily rolled over a tough loss into today. They didn't do that. They came ready to play right away from the first inning on.”

Rocker wasn’t perfect in his 29th game of the season. But starting opposite American League Cy Young contender Dylan Cease, he didn’t need to be perfect. He needed to put the Rangers in a position to win.

Rocker, much like his last start in Arizona, was cruising through the first part of his outing. On Friday, he allowed just two baserunners in the first four innings, both on singles through the left side of the infield. Then, exactly like his start against the Diamondbacks, he walked the first two batters he faced in the fifth.

A double to nine-hole hitter Myles Straw got the Blue Jays on the board and ended Rocker’s day, leaving the bullpen to cover the rest of the game.

“The conversation was about not letting Arizona happen again, and unfortunately, it just kind of did,” Schumaker said.

So when Schumaker walked to the mound to get the ball from Rocker, his mind was racing with how the staff could finish out this game.

The offense helped a bit in that regard. After all, the Rangers were already up 4-1 when veteran reliever Tyler Alexander relieved Rocker.

But Schumaker said he had about five relievers unavailable, presumably including closer Jacob Latz, setup man Jakob Junis and another high-leverage arm in Chase Silseth, though he declined to name them. Even Jordan Montgomery, who has been the long man lately, threw an inning Thursday night and it’s unclear what his limitations were.

Only one reliever was available for more than one inning. And he showed up.

After Tyler Alexander got the final two outs of the fifth, Trevor Williams -- who joined the club on Sept. 1 -- closed it out with four scoreless innings, matching his longest career scoreless relief outing to keep the bullpen relatively fresh for the final two games of the series.

This is the third time in four games on this homestand that Texas’ relief unit has pitched four scoreless innings. A “reliever” has thrown four or more scoreless innings on his own in each of the past three games, though two were technically starters returning from injury: Nathan Eovaldi on Wednesday and Cody Bradford on Thursday.

Per Elias, it's just the second time in the Wild Card Era (since 1995) a team has had three different relievers through four or more scoreless innings in three consecutive games; the Marlins did so July 7-9, 2021.

“It's all hands on deck right now,” Williams said. “My job in that spot is to get a zero, and then get one every time after that and give the team a chance to win this game. I'm glad that I did that today. These guys have been picking up each other all year, and it's been fun to watch the last few weeks. I'm glad I could do a small part of that and pick them up today. I’m glad we got the win.”