Mike Minor punches out Shohei Ohtani for the first of seven strikeouts. Minor is now 5-1 with a 2.78 ERA in his last six starts.

There’s an old saying in baseball that any night you go to a ballgame there’s a chance to see something that had never been seen before.

It happened last night at the Ballpark. Rangers fans witnessed a rare event indeed.

What they say was what’s known as “pitching.” It’s a rare phenomenon when the pitcher—the ball thrower guy on that little hill thing in the middle of the field—is adept enough at his position that he is able to get batters “out.” Out is a quaint term used in some far reaches of major league baseball to refer to the act of retiring a batter so he doesn’t eventually come around to score runs. You, as a Rangers fan, are familiar with the term “runs.”

Rangers pitcher Mike Minor continued his successful transition from reliever to starter, with five-plus innings of three-hit, seven-strikeout, two-run baseball, for his eleventh win of the season.

Getting a quicker than deserved exit, Minor watched his bullpen hold down the Angels the last four innings, for a 4-2 win, as the offense contributed home runs from Elvis Andrus and Adrian Beltre, and a two-run double off the bat of Nomar Mazara.

The win moved the Rangers to sixth in line for the second wild card, just 21.5 games behind Oakland.

Immediately after the stunning victory, the Rangers front office vowed to review tapes of the game and discover what this new phenomenon called pitching is. If other teams in the league have implemented this “pitching,” they have promised to look into it as well and see if they can bring this unique strategy to Arlington.

Stand by for further details. Actually, don’t stand by, this may take a while.

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TODAY’S GAME:

Jaime Barria (9-8, 3.46) vs. Bartolo Colon (7-11, 5.45)
Game time: 7:05

How the Angels hit against Colon.
How the Rangers hit against Barria.