Prior to Wednesday's game, the Texas Rangers hadn't had a quality start from a pitcher, other than Yu Darvish, since April 23.
For those who aren't sure, a quality start is earned when a starting pitcher goes at least six innings and allows three or fewer earned runs. It's not the ultimate metric of success, but it's a decent barometer. Darvish had three of those in that past month heading into his Thursday start, and guess who had that one on April 23. The answer is recent Tommy John recipient Martin Perez, and it was his second straight complete-game shutout to complete a sweep of the Oakland A's.
Tepesch became the first pitcher, other than Darvish, to register a quality start in Wednesday's 4-3 win over the Seattle Mariners as the Rangers set out for an 11-game road trip, and Darvish will look to make it two straight when he takes the hill on Thursday in Detroit.
Tepesch worked well on Wednesday with the exception of one bad inning, and really one bad pitch to Robinson Cano. He finished the day getting through 6 1/3 innings and allowing three runs on five hits while throwing a career-high 112 pitches. He picked up his first big-league win since last July.
Would the Rangers rather have a rotation of Darvish, Derek Holland, Perez, Matt Harrison and Colby Lewis? Sure, but that's not realistic anymore thanks to devastating injuries to Perez and Harrison, and Holland still working his way back from off-season knee surgery.
Guys like Tepesch and Nick Martinez are going to be counted on for a good while now, and Tepesch did his part on Wednesday.
