The Rangers forty-second win of the season was the Colby Lewis near perfect game, near no-hitter, near shutout, which he won, 5-1, with a complete game two-hitter to move to 6-0 on the season.

*****

CLOSE.
Originally published June 17, 2016.

“Well, that sucked.”

That’s how Colby Lewis summed it up in his post-game interview yesterday.

I doubt anyone watching the game would have shared that opinion, unless you were an Athletics fan. And if that’s the case, you’re not able to read this recap anyway, so what’s it matter?

Lewis came this close to a perfect game. Even closer to a no-hitter. Closer yet to a shutout. But ended up with a complete game 5-1 victory.

It was the first complete game of the year for a Rangers pitcher. Last year, they had five. Colby had two of them. (Cole Hamels, Chi Chi Gonzalez and Derek Holland had the others.)

And while the game fell short of immortality, nothing “sucked” about the job Colby Lewis did yesterday, improving his season record to a very unsucky 6-0, 2.81.

Mainly, he saved Jeff Banister from having to use his bullpen, which is either very very good or very very bad.

Now they should be very very rested going into three games at Saint Louis, the place the phrase “well, that sucked” was coined after a few games in October of  2011.