Corbin delivers 8 scoreless frames to keep Rangers in playoff race

ARLINGTON -- On Tuesday morning, the Rangers -- sitting 5 1/2 games out of the final AL Wild Card spot -- had a 6.9% chance to make the postseason, according to FanGraphs.

Those chances took a huge hit just hours later, when president of baseball operations Chris Young announced ace Nathan Eovaldi would miss the remainder of the regular season with a rotator cuff strain.

Eovaldi and his 1.73 ERA led the Rangers with an MLB-best 3.35 ERA entering Tuesday. Texas had won each of his last nine starts. Losing Eovaldi could have spelled the end of the season.

“It makes [things] a little bit more difficult when you lose a guy like Nate,” manager Bruce Bochy said pregame. “We’ve got a talented club. We're going to have to play great from this point on. I'm not looking at last night as a setback … but it's going to take all of us just hunkering down even more and finding a way to get this done.”

The Rangers aren’t quite rolling over just yet though.

Patrick Corbin dealt eight scoreless innings, while the offense exploded early and often, carrying the Rangers to a 7-3 win over the Angels to even the three-game set at Globe Life Field on Tuesday night. The southpaw hadn’t pitched into the seventh inning since June 6, when he dealt eight innings of two-run ball in a loss to the Nationals in D.C. He hadn’t even completed a full five innings in the month of August.

“In a big way, he came through,” Bochy said postgame. “I think it says a lot about the man. He's been around the game. He knows our situation. I think he just took it upon himself to really give the club a shot in the arm.

“That's what really has to happen when you lose such a big part of your club, especially in rotation. Guys have to step up. He did that in a huge way. That's what's got to happen. You just try to come together, hunker down even more, and find a way to get it done.”

Through the first five games of this homestand, Rangers starting pitchers have allowed just three earned runs in 34 innings, with a 0.79 ERA and a 0.62 WHIP to go with 42 strikeouts and just five walks.

This was also the longest scoreless outing for Corbin since Aug. 21, 2019 at Pittsburgh while pitching for the Nationals (also eight innings). In four starts against the Angels this season, Corbin is 2-0 with a 1.93 ERA and seven walks to 26 strikeouts.

“It was the tunneling,” Angels outfielder Jo Adell said of Corbin. “We were having issues tunneling. He was throwing the changeup off of the curveball and slider at times, which was really tough. I know, for me, the cutter, he was getting early swings. We were swinging early on the cutter that was working in, and it was kind of tough to really elevate that pitch and to get it up. And he got a lot of ground balls today. I think that was kind of the story.”

It’s been a frustrating month for Corbin, who entered the day with an 11.48 ERA across his first four August starts. But considering the situation -- Eovaldi down, with a bullpen game to follow on Wednesday -- he knew he needed to go deep into the game to give the Rangers a chance to win.

But this one win doesn’t change the situation totally.

“It's still going to have a sour taste for us here,” Corbin said. “[Eovaldi’s] a leader on this team. I've loved watching him pitch all season. He's just a professional pitcher that takes the ball, goes out there, competes. It's always tough when you lose somebody like that, especially on our team and where we're at.”

Over the last 10 days, the Rangers have lost three everyday position players to the injured list -- Marcus Semien, Evan Carter and Jake Burger -- as well as one of their best bench bats in Sam Haggerty. A pair of relievers in Jon Gray and Cole Winn joined the list before the final blow that is Eovaldi.

It will be an uphill climb for the Rangers to even sniff the postseason.

“[Resilence] is such a big part of the game,” Bochy said. “When you go through a season, you're going to have some adversity, ups and downs, ebbs and flows. It's going to happen. But what's important is how you deal with it. I think these guys have done a great job of it. We're not where we want to be, but some of these gut punches we've taken, they've done a good job of bouncing back. That's what has to happen from this point on.”