ARLINGTON -- If you ask Jon Gray, he wasn't entirely happy with his start on Wednesday night.

But it’s hard to understand why.

The right-hander tossed the Rangers’ 12th quality start this month, spinning seven innings of one-run ball against the Angels at Globe Life Field. He was tagged with the loss as Texas fell, 2-0, though his lone blemish was surrendering a first-inning solo home run to Shohei Ohtani.

Gray was nearly lights out the rest of the way.

“I’m a little frustrated because I just don't think I ever feel that great,” Gray said. “I feel like only 20% of the time, I feel good, which is kind of, you know, whatever. You battle with what you got and I felt like we did a good job of battling with what we had tonight.

“That one pitch to Ohtani, I mean I thought I got it where I wanted to, but you know, he's a different kind of player.”

Despite the good results, Gray said he can’t really pinpoint what’s going right in that 20% of the time that he’s feeling good on the mound.

“That's the frustrating part,” he said. “Like, I'm not going to complain about the results tonight, seven innings and one run is really good. But I still feel like there's something missing if I ever want to be the guy. I feel like that could have been a lot better than what it was and a lot of times I feel that way so it's tough to deal with, but I know there's something there to get towards and I'm really fighting to get there.”

But unfortunately luck was not on Gray’s side. While he tossed one of his best starts of the season, it happened to be just the ninth time the Rangers have been shut out this season. Texas’ three hits matched the second-lowest amount by the club in 2023.

The Rangers entered the series finale against the Angels leading the Majors with 1,138 hits. But one of baseball’s most potent lineups, with an American League-best +197 run differential entering the game, had no answers for Angels left-hander Reid Detmers over the first seven innings of the matchup to outduel Gray.

Detmers silenced the Rangers’ high-powered offense, keeping them hitless for 7 1/3 innings, before Marcus Semien broke up the no-hit bid with a one-out double in the eighth.

"You do have to give credit to the guy on the mound," Bochy said. “You're going to run into well-pitched games, but we did have an off night. We're getting no-hit, so it's obvious he's got pretty good stuff out there tonight. …

“It's never fun to lose a close game like this, especially when you get really good pitching like we did tonight."

It marked the second time this season that Gray has lasted at least seven innings, allowed one run and still taken the loss. It was also his fifth start where he has received zero runs of support, the most among Texas starters this season.

Gray said he doesn’t realize at the moment what type of run support he’s getting on any given outing, he’s just trying to pitch as good as he can each time out.

“I'm just looking at everything one pitch at a time,” Gray said. “Tonight, I felt like it was a really good pitched ballgame overall. Sometimes afterwards, you can look at it and be like, ‘Oh, that's unfortunate,’ but now like during all this stuff? No, it's game time. It's go time.”

Despite what Gray feels has been a rough stretch for him, he’s posted a 2.79 ERA in three August starts. He hasn’t quite reached his peaks of a 1.95 in May, but Bochy believes he’s back on the right track after posting a 5.48 ERA in four July starts.

“[It felt] different,” Gray said of his hot streak earlier this season. “For sure different. I can't really put a finger on what it is. Sometimes, I feel like I know. Sometimes, the next day it's different. So I'm just trying to be as consistent as I can and really just trying to nail those couple of things down that I'm really working on.

“I think that'll carry me a long way.”