When you glance at the final score in the newspaper you'll assume Derek Holland was mediocre to bad on a night the Rangers just drilled lots of home runs, but Holland actually had perhaps his best game of the season if you're willing to exclude his terrible five-run fourth inning.
Of course, you can't just take out an inning and use that to judge a pitcher, but in years past, with an inning like that, Holland would have fallen apart. Instead, he bounced back and threw three more shut out innings, for a total of seven innings of work, with nine strikeouts, to pick up a much needed win in the first game of this three game set against the Royals.
For the moment, the Rangers are back in first place.