After a rough start to the season, Nathan Eovaldi seems to have found his groove. On Monday, the right-hander will aim to keep building on that progress as the Texas Rangers kick off a three-game home series against the Arizona Diamondbacks in Arlington, Texas. The Rangers had dropped five of their previous six games before posting consecutive shutouts against the Chicago Cubs, who had been red-hot. The Cubs were riding the momentum of their second 10-game winning streak of the season before suffering 6-0 and 3-0 losses over the weekend. Eovaldi (4-4, 4.15 ERA) gave up 23 runs and nine home runs while losing four of his first six starts, but he has since rebounded impressively in two outings against his former team, the New York Yankees. He allowed just four hits over seven scoreless innings on April 29, then gave up one run on three hits across eight frames last Wednesday. “He had such a good game plan, such a good feel for swings,” said Rangers manager Skip Schumaker. “He has a game plan but also can navigate a game on his own as good as anybody, based on what he’s seeing.”
Eovaldi, 36, is 3-1 with a 4.17 ERA in 11 career appearances (eight starts) against Arizona. Right-hander Michael Soroka (4-2, 4.14) will try to end a two-start losing streak when he takes the mound for the Diamondbacks. Soroka was roughed up for eight runs on 10 hits over three innings in a 13-1 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers on April 30. He bounced back Wednesday, surrendering just one run on seven hits in 6 1/3 innings during a 1-0 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Soroka, 28, was outstanding in his only previous appearance against Texas, scattering two hits over six scoreless innings to earn the win last June while with Washington. He would be wise to pitch carefully to Josh Jung, who strung together three-hit performances in back-to-back games for Texas after going 0-for-12 in his previous three contests. Jung had been riding a 13-game hitting streak before that cold spell. While Jung is consistently finding success at the plate, the same can’t be said for Corey Seager. He is 0-for-14 with six strikeouts over his last four games, dropping his season average to .193. Seager’s heavy workload might be a factor—he has started 19 straight games without a day off.
“Corey and I talk every day about how he feels and where he’s at physically, but the other part of this is, you’re trying to win a series, right?” Schumaker said before Sunday’s game. “He’s still our best player. I don’t care what he did yesterday or the day before. It means something to us when you see him in the lineup. We do have a day circled here soon.” The Diamondbacks had lost seven of eight games before winning the final two contests of a three-game set against the New York Mets. Arizona allowed just two runs total on seven hits in those last two games. Making his second major league start, Ryan Waldschmidt notched his first three career RBIs on two hits in the Diamondbacks’ 5-1 win over the Mets on Sunday. He also made a spectacular catch in the fifth inning to preserve Eduardo Rodriguez’s no-hit bid. “I took off for it, I knew I was getting close to the fence, but I was going to do whatever I could to catch that ball,” Waldschmidt said. “I was going full speed into the wall, catch or not. I’m glad I was able to make that catch for him and keep that thing going.”
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