Jordan Montgomery Thrills Rangers Followers, Silences Rays in MLB Wild Card Sport 1 Gem

The Texas Rangers traded for Jordan Montgomery in July.

They’re absolutely glad they did.

Montgomery outdueled Tyler Glasnow to steer the Rangers to a 4-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays in Tuesday’s Sport 1 of the best-of-three American League Wild Card Collection at Tropicana Area.

The southpaw, who has been traded twice within the final two years, turned in a superb efficiency of seven scoreless innings with 5 strikeouts and 6 hits allowed. Arguably his finest second got here together with his glove, as his diving catch on a bunted popup by Jose Siri with runners on the corners and one out within the second inning stymied early momentum for the Rays.

Montgomery drew rave critiques for his catch and general efficiency from social media:

Texas did not want a lot run help given the pitching efficiency, but it surely bought some partly due to ugly fielding from the Rays. Tampa Bay completed the sport with 4 errors, which pressured Glasnow to make use of his strikeout prowess to pitch out of hassle quite a few instances.

A type of instances got here within the fifth inning when he allowed only one run due to a wild pitch after loading the bases with no person out.

But he exited within the sixth inning with two runners on earlier than Corey Seager singled up the center off Chris Devenski. That alone would have been hassle for the Rays, however Siri misplayed the ball after which airmailed the throw to 3rd, permitting two runs to attain.

That made it 4-0 in favor of the Rangers, which was greater than sufficient for Montgomery.

He escaped that second inning together with his personal diving play and a strikeout of Rene Pinto, labored round a runner on third within the third inning and settled in from there earlier than handing the ball to Aroldis Chapman and José Leclerc for the ultimate two frames.

Now his workforce can win the sequence in Sport 2 on Wednesday.