Cole Hamels' night on Tuesday can't be properly summarized by simply looking at his line — 6 innings pitches, 6 earned runs allowed, seven hits, two walks, eight strikeouts — in what was his biggest start yet with the Rangers.
Yet, despite the rough outing, the Rangers continued their streak of winning Hamels starts by pushing the streak to nine straight, and it came in a near must-win situation.
But forget about that for a minute, let's focus on the wildly insane night that was Cole Hamels' 11th start as a Texas Ranger.
Hamels worked six innings in the game, and he retired the first two hitters of the inning SIX times. That's right, all of the Tigers' six runs and eight hits came with two outs. Hamels was given runs three times, and failed to execute a shutdown inning twice, finally laying down the hammer in the fifth inning after his offense staked him to a 7-6 lead that the Rangers wouldn't relinquish.
Hamels, however, did retire nine straight at one point and 10 of his last 11 while fanning the side in the sixth before exiting stage left. He had his moments of glory after his awful ones, but there were lots of awful ones.
Yet, the Rangers got the win, and got some help from the Mariners, and put themselves one game closer to clinching the AL West — hopefully without Hamels having to pitch on Sunday to do it.
Possibly the best way to sum up the night goes to my Texas High School Football and Texas Rangers buddy @Tepper, with the ESPN series 30 for 30 in mind:
Sports Connection
Connecting you to your favorite North Texas sports teams as well as sports news around the globe.
What if I told you Hamels was terrible, Detroit tried a 9th-inning squeeze and Drew Stubbs was the hero? 30 for 30: The Stupidest Game Ever — Greg Tepper (@Tepper) September 30, 2015
Yep, that about does it.
