ATLANTA -- Bruce Bochy promised a surprise, and boy did he deliver.

Joking with the media during Saturday’s pregame session about a thin bullpen as the Rangers near the end of a stretch of 17 games in 17 days, Bochy noted: “I have a surprise, so.”

That surprise jogged out of the left field bullpen at Truist Park in the sixth inning Saturday night: starter Jon Gray.

In 209 regular season big league games, Gray has started 208 of them, with the lone relief appearances coming in 2019. He made three relief appearances for the Rangers during their World Series run in 2023, and allowed just one run over 5 2/3 innings, but the 32-year-old has little experience coming out of the bullpen.

Gray, who was unavailable postgame, said during the postseason that he was relatively uncomfortable coming out of the bullpen, but he was willing to do whatever to help the team win.

That sentiment was clearly echoed on Saturday as Gray struck out four of the five batters he faced in 1 2/3 scoreless innings of relief. The only ball put in play was a flyout from Marcell Ozuna that ended the seventh inning.

Surprise or not, he did his job keeping it a one-run game and giving the Rangers a chance to win. Texas ultimately fell, 5-2, but it was no fault of Gray, who looked the part of a flamethrowing reliever.

“Jon threw the ball outstanding tonight,” said starter Nathan Eovaldi, who gave up three runs in 5 1/3 innings. “I feel like he’s a different animal when he comes out of the bullpen and he was able to attack those guys. He didn't allow anybody to get on there, it was just attack, attack, attack with his fastball and he has a good slider and curveball mix. He just went right after them.”

Bochy said postgame the plan the entire time was for Gray to come out of the bullpen this game.

He last pitched on April 16 in the Rangers’ loss to the Tigers, and was originally scheduled to start again in this coming Tuesday’s series opener against the Mariners. Today would have been his scheduled day to throw a side.

“We had the flexibility with the day off [on Monday], so he was fresh and it just made sense to have him available,” Bochy said. “He's done a great job. He did a great job tonight. So it worked out well. But we just couldn't score some runs there. It's impressive what he did tonight.”

Gray kept it a one-run game, but the Rangers offense was unable to overtake Atlanta’s bullpen trio of Joe Jiménez, AJ Minter and Rasiel Iglesias.

The Braves put it out of reach in the bottom of the eighth inning with a two-run homer from Travis d’Arnaud -- his fourth of the series -- off Austin Pruitt. The right-hander has now allowed six runs in 4 1/3 innings since he was added to the roster on April 13.

Bochy said if the Rangers had tied the game or taken the lead, he would’ve gone to one of his high leverage arms: Kirby Yates, David Robertson or José Leclerc.

“We’re just trying to freshen up the other guys,” Bochy said. “It’s a long season. We're run down and it wasn't a tie here. Yates, we've been using a lot. We've been trying to stay away from guys if we can. Robertson would have been the closer tonight [in that situation].”

That being said, it was ironically Gray -- a fish out of water coming out of the bullpen -- who was the Rangers’ best pitcher in the loss.

But despite how good Gray could potentially be out of the bullpen, Bochy said there are no immediate plans to make that a permanent switch. Things could change down the line as the Rangers get a trio of veteran starters back from the injured list in Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom and Tyler Mahle, but for now, Gray will remain in the rotation.

“I'd say no, but we're keeping our options open,” Bochy said. “He’s been throwing the ball well, and with the day off we can move guys around. I can't say we plan on doing that [moving him to the bullpen] right now. I like the way he’s throwing the ball. He’s throwing it well as a starter. This is just a unique situation where the bullpen has been taxed a lot. He was fresh and we have the day off, so we knew we had flexibility there to use him tonight.”