We all know the Philadelphia Phillies have the best 1-2-3 top of the starting rotation ever assembled on God's green Earth, but on Sunday, Matt Harrison beat Roy Oswalt, when Oswalt was on his game.
It signaled a turnaround of sorts for Harrison, who began the season as the best thing going in the Rangers' rotation going 7, 7 and 8 innings in his first three starts -- all wins, including two against the Red Sox and the Yankees in Yankee Stadium.
He wasn't quite as good in his fourth start, but still not bad, in a loss to the Angels. And then his wheels came spinning off.
His next two starts saw him go a combined 4 2/3 innings and give up 11 earned runs, including the worst outing of his career, a 1 2/3 outing in Oakland when he gave up four runs and six hits.
Since then, he's been better. And it culminated on Sunday in what was perhaps his best start of the year when he pitching into the ninth inning and was working on a complete-game shutout before turning it over to Neftali Feliz for the final two outs of the game to preserve the combined shutout.
Harrison's book has always read like this: He has a few really solid starts, a great start, then two or three bad ones. So the odds are, he's got another valley coming in between the peaks. But Rangers fans can certainly hope that's not the case.
