10-14 - Rangers, Phillies play to thrilling 0-0 tie (Texas zombies win 2-1)

The Texas Rangers scored two artificial excitement runs while the Philadelphia Phillies scored just one in their tenth inning.

We had ourselves a showdown on the rubber in the City of Brotherly Love with Rangers starter Martin Perez going toe to toe with Philadelphia’s Zack Wheeler.

In a rarity for this peculiar season, both starters made it through seven or more innings with each hurler collecting three double plays apiece to erase rallies before finishing their nights unscathed in the run column.

Hits with runners on base were few and far between with the two teams combining to go 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position with Texas leaving four runners to Philadelphia’s seven stranded in the actually legitimate portion of the evening through the first nine innings before the Mandatory Manfred Resolution in extras.

In the 10th, a two-out, two-run blooper off the bat of former Phillies hero Brad Miller plated some zombies to eventually give the Rangers their season-high fourth consecutive win.

The Rangers are also no longer in last place in the American League West as they creep past the 10-15 Oakland Athletics.

Player of the Game: If you had told me like ten years ago, when Martin Perez was in seemingly his 78th year as the Rangers’ top pitching prospect, that the lefty would be coming off his third consecutive gem for Texas with just one run allowed in 20 innings, I’d have been excited to learn that the Rangers had developed a quality starter from a youngster with promise.

What makes a stretch of starts like this so surprising is how we got from there to here in a decade where Perez was kind of a mediocre starter for Texas, then an average one, then a bad one, and then he was gone to Minnesota and then Boston for a few years before returning as an afterthought at best in 2022.

And yet, here we are, where after six shutout innings in Oakland, a perfect game into the 7th against Houston, and seven shutout innings against Philly tonight, Perez has been the Rangers’ best pitcher and arguably their best player so far in 2022.

It only took like 88 years.

Up Next: The Rangers have another day off on Thursday before beginning a weekend series where they will try to stop the red hot New York Yankees beginning on Friday night in the Bronx.