Personal Loans

Arlington, TX, United States (AHN Sports) – Looking strictly at the numbers, it appears as if Texas Rangers pitcher Colby Lewis is struggling this season and that his performance would be a topic of concern for his manager and teammates, but looks can be deceiving.

After surrendering six runs on seven hits in five innings of work Monday night in a 6-4 loss to Toronto, Lewis fell to 1-3 on the season with a bloated 6.95 ERA.

For the Rangers’ 2010 post-season hero, those are significantly below expectations, but no one was worried, despite the fact he surrendered three home runs in the fifth inning Monday.

The first home run, a three-run blast by Corey Patterson, was an 0-2 fastball so high and inside, hardly anyone could believe he was able to launch it out of the park.

“I elevated the ball to Patterson and who knew that he would stay on top of a ball that was at his eyes,” shrugged Lewis. “I don’t know, sometimes it goes your way and sometimes it doesn’t.”

“You got to give him credit, that was the pitch I wanted, fastball up,” said Texas catcher Yorvit Torrealba. “It was neck-high probably. Usually, not a lot of guys can hit that ball that high. To be able to hit the ball out of the ballpark from a pitch that high, you’ve got to give him credit.”

Then, on Lewis’ very next pitch, Jose Bautista drilled one into the left field seats for his major league-leading eighth homer. And after Lewis walked Adam Lind, Juan Rivera took him deep.

“I threw a good strike slider to Bautista, but apparently he was sitting on it, so what do you do?” said Lewis, who allowed just three hits over the first four innings. “He’s done it in the past, maybe he was cheating slider, I have no idea. It was another ball up and out of the zone that Rivera hit. I don’t know, it was just a bad inning.”

“I thought tonight he was real good, I really did,” said Rangers manager Ron Washington. “When things started happening early in the game, he was able to pitch around it. Then, just in that fifth inning, things unraveled.”

“I do believe if he can continue to do what he did tonight in the first four, things will work out. I thought he had his fast ball down for the most part, had a good change-up, good breaking ball, just that fifth inning unraveled for him.”

Lewis, who surrendered four runs in five innings in his last start on April 19 in what turned out to be a 15-4 loss to the Angels, was happy with his performance overall.

“I felt great, I felt like tonight was the best stuff I had all year, so I can’t get stuck on what happens in one inning, just move forward and take the first four and move on,” said Lewis. “Just coming off the year that I had, maybe guys are looking at a lot of footage from last year and kind of sitting on those really good sliders down and away. For me, I think I got to continue what I was doing the first four innings.”

Washington was not worried about his number two starter.

“One thing about baseball is it challenges you,” said Washington. “So he’s challenged and we’re challenged and we’ll get through it. He’s healthy, we’ll keep giving him the ball, he’ll figure it out.”

“Colby’s fine, he was cruising through the whole game,” noted Texas’ Michael Young, who hit two doubles in the game. “I still have no idea how Patterson hit that pitch, so Colby’s fine. I don’t worry about Colby, he’s the least of our concerns.”

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