Boyd's strong start leads Tigers over Rangers, 2-0

ARLINGTON, Texas – It was here, nearly a year ago, when Matt Boyd’s rough rookie season came to a close. It was on the pitcher’s mound at Globe Life Park where he was shellacked in a short outing against the Rangers. He was tired then. Threw more innings than he had in his career. Pitching at the highest level, in the biggest ballparks, he was humbled by baseball.

It was here, in front of his locker inside the visitor’s clubhouse, when he said these things, with confidence: “I’m only a fraction of the pitcher I will be next year. I know I can have a lot of success at this level. It’s going to be a whole different beast next year.”

On Saturday night, those words rang true. Matched up against one of the best pitchers in the American League – Rangers left-handed ace Cole Hamels – Boyd came up when the Tigers needed him big, pitching the best game of his young big-league career in a 2-0 shutout win over the Rangers.

“I was very aware of it,” Boyd said. “You think of that feeling and it burns inside your gut, giving up a bunch of runs, not going deep into the game. That outing last year was bad.”

His return trip to Arlington was not good, but great. Boyd threw seven shutout innings, allowing just two hits against one of the best lineups in baseball. He got ahead of hitters with the fastball and kept them off-balance with a steady diet of breaking balls – first curveballs, then sliders.

“Everything was kind of working pretty good,” Boyd said.

“That’s as good as we’ve seen Matt Boyd,” manager Brad Ausmus said.

Since the start of July, Boyd is 4-0 with a 2.16 ERA. In his latest solid showing, the southpaw threw with a lower arm slot, as suggested by pitching coach Rich Dubee during a bullpen session earlier in the road trip in Seattle. The results were evident: Boyd averaged nearly two m.p.h. more on his fastball, according to BrooksBaseball.com.

“It makes all the difference in the world,” he said. “It feels like I’m throwing sidearm now but it just frees up and lets my arm move freely. I’m not fighting myself.”

The Rangers didn’t show much fight against Boyd over seven innings. Hamels – who is a midseason contender for the AL Cy Young Award – fought against a Tigers lineup that racked up 14 hits against him, but only two runs. Those runs were more than enough for Boyd and the back-end of their bullpen to snap a five-game losing streak.

There were missed opportunities and men left on base, but there was also an RBI single by Victor Martinez in the fourth inning and an RBI double by Casey McGehee in the fifth inning. McGehee, hitting second, went 4-for-5. It was the seventh four-hit game of his career.

“Whenever you have a string of losses like we had earlier in the season or we had this past five days,” Ausmus said, “It definitely feels better to kind of get the monkey off the back.”

They went 2-for-10 with runners in scoring position and left 13 men on base. They ran into outs on the bases and came up empty with the bases loaded on more than one occasion, but with Boyd pitching that brand of baseball, it didn’t matter.

Dubee thought the mechanical change would be beneficial for both his breaking ball and velocity over the long-term, and in the short-term, the results were outstanding.

“There’s not much you can say about the way he threw tonight,” McGehee said.

Boyd handed the baton to Shane Greene, who, pitching for the first time in a week, threw a scoreless eighth inning, and then Francisco Rodriguez, who picked up his 32nd save in 35 chances with a scoreless ninth inning.

It was a game on paper – facing Hamels and the Rangers offense – that looked lopsided.

“That’s why they say, matchups may look great or bad on paper, but you still gotta play the game on grass,” Ausmus said.

And on this field, the same one that Boyd walked off after 2 2/3 innings late last September, after getting smacked for six runs on seven hits and three home runs, he showed how far he’s come in the calendar year.

“Quite a bit mentally,” he said. “It was the last outing of the season. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth, but you learn from it and move forward. It was a big emphasis this year.”

He paused.

“There’s still a long way to go.”

Contact Anthony Fenech: afenech@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @anthonyfenech.