ARLINGTON -- Jon Gray was adamant that there was ¡°I don't know, just too much foolin' around¡± on his end during his last start on April 24 against the Mariners.

That day, he allowed one run in 4 2/3 innings as his pitch count ran up and he was unable to go deep into the game.

On Tuesday, as the Rangers defeated the Nationals 7-1 to open the three-game set at Globe Life Field, Gray was definitely not fooling around anymore. The 32-year-old right-hander tossed eight innings of one-run ball, propelling Texas to a big victory. He allowed just three hits in the win, two of which never left the infield, while striking out three and walking none.

It was his first win of the season.

¡°You can't get by on stuff alone,¡± general manager Chris Young said pregame. ¡°The stuff in today's game is so good. Hitters see it every single night, so unless you have the best stuff in the league, it's really hard to get by out-stuffing people. You have to have command and pitchability, and Jon certainly has that.¡±

Gray allowed a first-inning leadoff infield single to CJ Abrams, who would then score on a Luis Garc¨ªa Jr. single. He then proceeded to retire 24 of his next 26 batters faced, including six three-up, three-down frames.

It¡¯s the longest start by a Rangers pitcher since Jordan Montgomery on Aug. 21, 2023, when he threw eight scoreless innings at Arizona. It¡¯s also the longest start Gray has produced since he went nine innings on June 7, 2023 against the Cardinals.

¡°Yeah, that didn¡¯t suck,¡± catcher Jonah Heim joked.

¡°I felt like as the day went on, we made better pitches,¡± Gray added. ¡°We wanted to be in the zone early, obviously not walk guys, not fool around. I was trying to be as efficient as possible. So I thought, just mixing in the zone, we got away with a lot more than we usually do. But it was really good.¡±

Gray was masterful all night long, expertly mixing his pitches with more sliders (46) than fastballs (38), while throwing in a healthy serving of changeups (11) and curveballs (3). His velocity was up across the board as he navigated easily through the Nationals lineup, which had tallied 40 hits in a four-game sweep over the Marlins before heading west to Texas.

¡°The slider was really, really good,¡± said Nats manager Dave Martinez. ¡°It was almost like a cutter. So we just couldn¡¯t get the ball up in the zone. I think we got one ball Luis hit. Other than that, everything was down. We couldn¡¯t do anything with it.¡±

Both Heim and Gray emphasized that filling up the zone was the key to the outing. When the slider is at its best, everything else plays better off of it. Because of that, it was by far the most efficient night of the season for Gray, though it¡¯s been building for weeks with pitchability on the mound.

¡°You can see it just in the way he goes about it on the mound,¡± Heim said. ¡°He's throwing the pitch and he's not trying to overthink out there. He's just trusting his stuff and going at these guys. So when he can fill up the zone, he's got lights-out stuff, so when he can throw strikes, we're in pretty good shape.¡±

Gray allowed five runs in 3 2/3 innings in his 2024 debut on March 31 against the Cubs, but has been as close to lights out as possible ever since.

In the month of April, Gray has allowed just four earned runs over 29 innings of work, good for a 1.24 ERA. Those numbers include 1 2/3 perfect innings out of the bullpen in Atlanta on April 20 as the Rangers navigated a tough 17 games in 17 days stretch.

That is the second lowest ERA in a single April in club history behind just Rick Honeycutt in 1983 (0.72 ERA in five starts).

¡°Jon's a competitor,¡± Young said. ¡°He got off to a little bit of a slow start. He had a neck issue coming out of Spring Training that I think limited him, and then he sort of got in his rhythm. He's been great. It's been exciting. He even bailed us out coming in relief in Atlanta there. It was really impressive what he did and it's been fun to see. Jon has a track record of success. He's a very high quality Major League pitcher and we expect him to continue making very good starts as we move forward.¡±