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Texas Rangers' Nathan Eovaldi pitches during the first inning of a baseball game against the New York Yankees, Wednesday, May 6, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II) (Frank Franklin II/AP)
NEW YORK – The Rangers presented a dilemma on a rainy Wednesday night of accomplishments.
Do you start to tell the story with that which the Rangers have accomplished all too frequently this season? Or with that which has been accomplished against the Yankees once in the last 34 years?
Hey, give us once in a couple of decades over once every couple of weeks.
The Rangers much-maligned (a phrase usually only reserved for backup quarterbacks and shaky relievers) offense punched out of its bag on Wednesday in a 6-1 win over the Yankees. It was only the second time in the last three weeks they’ve scored more than five runs in a game. Corey Seager had two run-producing hits. Couldn’t have come at a better time after the Rangers shut down following the first inning Tuesday.
But, look, Nathan Eovaldi smothered the Yankees. Again. In his eight innings of work, he allowed a solo homer to Aaron Judge. Really, who doesn’t do that? But it came just a week after he’d held the Yankees scoreless for seven innings in Arlington. And dating back to 2025, he’s now held the Yankees to one or zero runs in four straight starts of at least six innings. Since 1990, only one pitcher, Chris Bassitt in 2023-24, has posted an equivalent streak against the Yankees.
Moral of that story: The Rangers have a long way to go and a lot to address offensively to get to October, but, if they can get there, they’ve gotta like the prospects of having Eovaldi face the Yankees twice in a series.
“I don’t think I take any team for granted,” said Eovaldi, who pitched two seasons for the Yankees before his second Tommy John elbow surgery. “But especially when you're facing the Yankees. They have the power, they have the ability to operate. You hear about the Yankees pitching this year and they’ve thrown the ball great, but that lineup, they can do damage at any point, so you have to stay on top of it.”
What Eovaldi has done with the Yankees, particularly in his last two starts, is take the traditional fastball – the four-seamer – completely out of the mix and made it even more difficult for an opponent to key in on one hittable pitch. Easier said than done, but few pitchers have the wide repertoire of Eovaldi.
He’d given up a lot of homers in the first month of the season on fastballs he couldn’t get underneath bats at the top of the zone. So, he essentially stopped throwing it. He threw just nine four-seamers for a second straight start. He’s gone that light on the fastball three times in his career, twice in the last two weeks.
Instead, he relied heavily on his curveball. He threw it 31 times, the most he’s ever thrown it in a start, according to MLB Statcast. He almost doubled the usage of the pitch from the last time out. Got eight misses among the 16 swings the Yankees took.
He backed it up with his splitter, which dives, and a cutter that runs into left-handed hitters. In effect, it gives him pitches at “high, medium and really slow,” said catcher Kyle Higashioka.
“Hitters can cover one of those,” Higashioka said. “Some can cover two. But it’s really difficult when you’ve got all three.”
Said manager Skip Schumaker: “You know how good that team is over there. Their game planning is elite. You have to mix it up. You cannot get into patterns. And, I didn’t know what [Eovaldi] was throwing either. He had such a good game plan, such a good feel for swings. He has a game plan, but also can navigate a game on his own as good as anybody, based on what he’s seeing.”
The first time through the Yankees lineup, Eovaldi basically split usage between the splitter, curve and cutter equally, planting the seeds of uncertainty in the minds of Yankees hitters. The second time, he went a bit heavy on cutters. And then he was able to return to his best pitch, the split-finger, the third time through with relative impunity. The only mistake was a 2-0 splitter left up to Aaron Judge, who sentenced the ball to exile in the right field seats.
“He kind of stays unpredictable,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “He really can slow you down with the curveball. And then, he’s still got some four-seam life at the top of the zone when he does that. He got a lead and ran with it.”
Yes, Eovaldi did run with the lead on Wednesday. Also, the lead kept running. The Rangers scored a run on Seager’s homer in the first, but unlike Tuesday, the Rangers kept adding on. Ezequiel Duran, whom Schumaker called a “sparkplug” in the No. 2 hole, delivered a double, and Evan Carter a two-run homer. And in the fourth, the Rangers actually turned a bases-loaded situation into multiple runs on a sacrifice fly by Duran and a single by Seager.
“To get six runs tonight was a really good feeling,” Schumaker said.
It was a nice accomplishment given this team’s recent struggles.
But there’s nice and there’s once-in-a-couple-of-decades nice.
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