Colby Lewis emerges from slump with dominant, nearly perfect, win over A’s
There were no indications whatsoever from his previous three outings that Texas Rangers right-hander Colby Lewis would flirt with the 24th perfect game in major league history Friday night.
Lewis lost all three of those starts, gave up at least six hits in each and didn’t last beyond the sixth inning in any of those games.
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Yet, he was simply masterful against Oakland until third baseman Danny Valencia led off the eighth inning with a double to ruin Lewis’ bid for a perfect game with a sudden, shocking crack of the bat. Still, Lewis managed to regroup from having history ripped out from under him. He closed out the A’s to earn his 15th win of the season, a career best.
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Oakland catcher Josh Phegley earned a second hit for his team off Lewis to start the ninth inning, but the 36-year-old brushed it off and closed the door on the third complete-game shutout of his career. Lewis needed only 97 pitches to get through the outing and logged just four strikeouts.
His teammates gave Lewis a nice cushion by scoring three runs in the first inning with Mitch Moreland’s two-run double doing most of the damage.
Just a week ago, Lewis was trying to convince people he was capable of reaching 200 innings this season. He is now at 184 for the year and suddenly looks more than capable of pitching into October. Speaking of playoff time, Lewis helped keep the Rangers just two games behind Houston in the American League west and in the second wild card position going into the weekend.
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Kyle Ringo is a contributing writer to Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KyleRingo
