Gray returns to form in stellar effort vs. Giants

SAN FRANCISCO -- Before Friday’s series-opening matchup between the Rangers and Giants, Bruce Bochy noted how different his current team in Texas is from the teams in all his years with San Francisco.

Those Giants teams were built on pitching and defense, while this Rangers team thrives on its high-powered offense, which is one of the best in the American League.

At Oracle Park on Friday night, it looked like a game straight out of the Bochy-era Giants: gritty and low-scoring. And Texas came out on top with a 2-1 victory thanks to seven shutout innings from starter Jon Gray.

Texas was able to scrape across two runs on back-to-back homers from Nathaniel Lowe and Mitch Garver in the sixth inning to put Gray in line for the win.

“Great ballgame, I'll start with that,” Bochy said. “It all started with Jon Gray. What a great job he did. He just had everything going tonight, had good command and gave us seven solid innings. He had a good fastball going, good command of it and the slider. He used both of them effectively and mixed in the changeup. He just did a terrific job.

“He looked really focused and just had a good look about him. He went out there and gave us everything they needed. So it was good to see him throw the ball like that.”

Gray struck out seven San Francisco hitters while limiting the Giants to just two hits and no walks. It was his longest start since throwing a complete game against the Cardinals on June 7, which was also the last time he didn’t issue a single walk.

It was a good bounceback outing for Gray, who has stumbled through his last few starts.

After a hot start to the season in which he held a 2.81 ERA on May 26, Gray has struggled since the calendar turned to June. In his last 10 starts entering Friday, the right-hander had posted a 4.98 ERA while allowing at least one earned run in eight of those outings.

“I've been really waiting for a game like this and it's great to do it now,” Gray said. “Hopefully [I can continue] down the stretch. To do it here in the first game, it was really cool. I've been really searching for this kind of game for a long time. I'm glad it's here, so I’m really looking to building off of that.”

Garver, who has stepped up as the starting catcher with All-Star Jonah Heim sidelined, said the slider location is what made Gray so effective against the Giants. When the slider is working, Gray’s entire game is elevated with it, Garver said.

Gray threw 37 sliders (43%) out of 87 total pitches. He typically throws his slider about 30% of the time.

“I feel like some starts throughout his tenure here, the slider can get a little arm side and that's when the hard contact comes,” Garver explained. “We picked our spots to throw the four-seam, but we were throwing a lot of sliders, it was kind of the game plan going in. He was able to locate it for a strike, he was able to locate it down away for chase. He was just very effective.”

Both Gray and Bochy noted that this was the version of Gray that the Rangers got in April and May, when he was nearly lights out atop the rotation. More than anything, they hope it’s the version they’ll see down the stretch this season and into the postseason.

After some rough stretches, Gray feels like he’s righted the ship to be where he needs to be to help this team win games throughout the rest of the season.

“It's tough because we can only control what we can control and sometimes you can only think about what you can control,” Gray said. “When you do run into bad luck, it's hard. It's kind of hard to stay on the path and keep doing what you’re doing. But I feel like things have gotten better. I feel like all the work we put in the last few weeks is finally starting to pay off. I feel kind of just better in my delivery, better mentally out there. It's been great.”