Nick Martinez made his return to the Texas Rangers' rotation on Monday night to seemingly alleviate them from what was bound to come with veteran lefty Wandy Rodriguez on the mound after his recent struggles.
Turns out, Rodriguez likely couldn't have done any worse than the young right-hander, who allowed seven runs in the game's first two innings before exiting after four innings and with a 7-2 deficit.
Martinez walked two and struck out two while allowing seven hits in his first appearance with the Rangers since July 1, when he was rocked by the Orioles and optioned to Round Rock.
As a whole, Martinez's hot start to the season has turned sour. His first 10 starts were pretty high quality and at that time, he was sporting a 2.03 ERA. Taking a quick look at his seven starts since then, including Monday's, lets you know that things aren't going too well.
Martinez has worked just 39 innings in those seven starts and has allowed 33 runs with nearly as many walks as strikeouts.
The Rangers' rotation, which was seemingly pretty deep just a month or so ago, suddenly looks just like a whole lot of bad with a couple of capable guys mixed in. The Rangers have always been really high on Martinez, and it'd be dumb to write him off this early in his career, but they will need to see some more good from him or he'll be heading down to the minors to stay for a little bit longer this time around.
