Brock Burke was great in his first major league outing on Tuesday, throwing 6 shutout innings, and expecting him to replicate that was unrealistic. Burke didn’t repeat that today — instead, he allowed 1 run in 6 innings of work. It was a bit laborious at times — he hit a pair of batters and walked 3 while striking out 5 batters — but he allowed just 2 hits.
Burke was, you may recall, generating talk in spring training that he was the most advanced of the Rangers upper-level pitching prospects, but the blister and shoulder problem slowed him down, and he seemed to fall off the radar until recently. I think it is fair to assume he will, health allowing, be in the rotation the rest of the way, and be in the mix next spring to win a spot in the 2020 rotation.
On a related note, Jurickson Profar is slashing .208/.279/.389 this year.
Emmanuel Clase allowed a run in 0.2 IP after allowing the first three batters he faced to reach on a single, a walk and an HBP. Clase, for all his velocity, hasn’t been as good as missing bats as one would expect — hes similar to Jordan Hicks in that regard.
Brett Martin finished things out with a scoreless 1.1 IP. He did allow a single and a double, but struck out 2. He’s been up and down this year, but he’s shown signs that there’s a solid major league reliever in there.
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