Colby Lewis has been a medical marvel on the Rangers starting staff this season, and really dating back to the all-star break a year ago.
By now, everyone knows his story — two surgeries, including an unprecedented hip procedure in as many years, and a seemingly complete recovery, but his past few outings have been bad. On Wednesday, he took bad to whole new level, surrendering 10 runs and failing to get out of the third inning.
The game marked his third straight — two against Cleveland — of allowing at least five earned runs after a streak of four starts in which he'd allowed two or fewer. So, should we be worried about the veteran righty?
We can hope not, and here's why: We've seen this before.
Lewis was barely staying afloat in the rotation last year when he allowed 13 runs (11 earned) in 2 1/3 innings against the Angels on July 10th of last year. At that point, many we were ready to just cast Lewis out to sea and say goodbye to a trusted hand. But over his final 13 starts of the year, Lewis posted a 3.86 ERA and was highly serviceable, finishing the year as the Rangers' best starter.
Does that mean Lewis is going to turn it around in his next start against the White Sox? We can hope so, even though this little three-start span of struggles is a bit concerning given how great he was up to that point this year. It could be an issue of fatigue, or it could be something worse. The Rangers, and their fans, certainly hope not.
