Among standout Rangers rotation, veteran Corbin quietly doing 'terrific job'

ARLINGTON -- For most of the Rangers’ history, any starter who had a 3.35 ERA after his first seven starts might have been considered their ace. He might even have been something of a household name among North Texas baseball fans. But for Patrick Corbin, right now, he’s just the new guy, No. 4 in a quintet that is performing better than any other Rangers rotation ever has at this point in a season.

Corbin might not be getting as much attention as Nathan Eovaldi, Tyler Mahle and Jacob deGrom are. Still, the 35-year-old Corbin has become a dependable contributor to the rotation in his first year with the Rangers. His six-inning, nine-strikeout outing Wednesday, in an 8-3 victory over the Rockies, was typical of what the lefty has done for Texas since he signed as a free agent at the end of Spring Training. He surrendered three earned runs Wednesday and struck out six in a row at one point.

“I feel like the movement and the velocity on most of the pitches are the same [but] I think I’m locating a lot better, throwing better pitches in better counts and just kind of having a game plan instead of giving into hitters in some counts,” Corbin said. “Command, getting ahead and just trying to keep them off balance, to simplify it, was my mindset coming into this season.”

Mahle (1.47 ERA in nine starts), Eovaldi (1.78 in nine) and deGrom (2.72 in eight) have been impressive enough to overshadow Corbin’s work at times. They’re more familiar to the organization and its fans than Corbin, but manager Bruce Bochy certainly is aware of what the 13th-year veteran has accomplished for Texas thus far.

“Another really nice quality start,” Bochy said of Corbin’s win over the Rockies. “He’s done a terrific job since we’ve gotten him. He’s got pitchability, he’s got the sinker, he goes in and out with it, he’s got offspeed pitches, he has a good feel out there. ... he’s got great game awareness.”

For most of the Rangers’ history, giving up three runs in six innings was the kind of night a Rangers starter could celebrate. But on this club, whose starters’ ERA is 3.00, it’s no more than a decent night’s work.

The 2025 Rangers starters have compiled the lowest ERA of any rotation in club history through the first 44 games of a season. This year, only the Mets (2.74) and Royals (2.98) have outperformed the Rangers in ERA, and the Texas starters’ .218 opponents’ batting average is second-best in the Majors behind the Yankees (.215).

“It's great to build off each other,” Corbin said. “No one wants to be that weak link in there. You want to go out there and compete. You see somebody else go out there and dominate, you want to do the same. ... I think starting pitching is the most important thing on a team. And when you’ve got guys that are pitching deep in games, it helps out a lot. It cleans up a lot of things, and that's our job, and it's great to be a part of it.”

The Rangers have won five in a row, tied for their longest winning streak of the season, and at 23-21, are now two games above .500 for the first time since April 29. The streak deserves a tiny asterisk, given that the Rockies (7-36) have lost more games in the first 43 games of a season than anyone else since the Modern Era of baseball began in 1900. But Corbin has been solid against winning teams lately, too.

Corbin allowed three earned runs Wednesday and has now yielded a total of six earned runs in his past three starts, for a 2.89 ERA in 18 2/3 innings over that span. The Rangers lost the first two of those, against the Mariners and Tigers, but they only scored one run in each of those games. Corbin got more support this time.

The Rangers scored four runs in the first inning, with the first five Texas batters reaching via base hits. The most damaging of those was Wyatt Langford’s two-run homer. Two more runs scored on a walk and a fielder’s choice before Rockies starter Antonio Senzatela induced a double play to escape the inning -- but not the sweep.