Eovaldi (9 K's) ties Rangers' Opening Day mark: 'He pitched like a No. 1'?

ARLINGTON -- Nathan Eovaldi has been as synonymous with this current era of the Texas Rangers as anybody.

On a team with Jacob deGrom, one of the greatest pitchers in this generation, and Corey Seager, the club’s own World Series MVP in 2023, Eovaldi has arguably been the most important Ranger.

With deGrom sidelined for much of the past two seasons as he recovered from Tommy John surgery, Eovaldi has been the de facto ace of the staff.

Making his second Opening Day start on Thursday afternoon against the Red Sox, Nasty Nate delivered once again, despite the Rangers’ 5-2 loss after Wilyer Abreu hit a go-ahead home run off reliever Luke Jackson in the ninth inning.

“Nathan deserved that one, he pitched a heck of a game,” Jackson said.

Eovaldi, an Alvin, Texas native, put together a quality start against his former team, allowing two runs on three hits over six innings to go with no walks and nine strikeouts. It was his second Opening Day quality start, tying for the second most on Opening Day in club history, trailing only Charlie Hough (five).

“He pitched like a No. 1,” said second baseman Marcus Semien, who went 1-for-4 with a single in the loss. “When you bring him back, you know you’re going to get the intensity. He’s a big-game pitcher. Today was a big game. It’s Opening Day and he showed up. You pair him with deGrom and it’s going to be a good rotation.”

Eovaldi's nine strikeouts tied the club mark for the most by a starting pitcher on Opening Day in Rangers history. The other is Lance Lynn, who had nine against the Rockies at Globe Life Park in 2020.

Six of Eovaldi’s nine strikeouts came on his curveball, tying for the most K’s in a single game on the pitch in his career (also Aug. 9, 2020 vs. the Blue Jays). He generated a game-high 17 swings-and-misses.

Eovaldi typically relies on his splitter (31% in 2024) and cutter (15%) as secondary pitches, but on Thursday, he threw a curveball 25% of the time after making an adjustment with the pitch the previous day.

“I thought he looked fantastic,” catcher Kyle Higashioka said. “He got a ton of strikeouts. He was in the zone, getting ahead of guys and putting them away with kind of the ease I typically see from him when he's faced me in the past. He put us in a great position to win, which is unfortunate we couldn't pull it out in the end.”

Third baseman Josh Jung knew Eovaldi would be mad at himself for his performance, regardless of the quality start he delivered.

“That's that competitor,” Jung said. “That's the guy that you want on the mound. You want that guy to be up here, because he's competing every single pitch, and he understands the value of a run. I get mad at him all the time because it's baseball, but that's the kind of guy you want.”

On two separate occasions in the game, the Rangers scored a run, and Eovaldi failed to deliver a shutdown inning in the next frame. He only gave up two runs, but he felt like both were avoidable from his perspective.

“It’s frustrating when we score and the very next thing I do is give it back up,” Eovaldi said. “I feel like the biggest inning in baseball is a shutdown inning, get the boys back in the dugout and keep it rolling. I think at the end of the day, it's the wins and losses. We lost today. That's the hard one for me. I didn't have the shutdown innings.

“I feel like it's a completely different outcome if I have one shut down after we score. I just feel like I didn't do that.”