Jake Diekman was made unavailable for the Rangers in Chicago over this past weekend when they were swept away by the red-hot White Sox. He needed a break after throwing in nine of the Rangers' first 17 games of the season.
The three days off apparently worked wonders for Diekman, the hard-throwing lefty.
Diekman threw a scoreless inning in Monday's 3-1 loss to the Yankees but came back in a winning situation on Wednesday and shut down the Yankees for the seventh and eighth innings, showing his value as a two-inning reliever.
Diekman threw 28 pitches in the two innings of work, allowed no baserunners and had a strikeout to set things up for Shawn Tolleson to close the door on Martin Perez's first victory of the season.
Of the six batters Diekman retired, four were right-handed. With Diekman's three-quarter arm slot from the left side at 98 or 99 mph, you'd think he'd be a lefty specialist, but as The Dallas Morning News points out, he's actually allowed just a .100 batting average to right-handed hitters this year (20 at-bats).
