DETROIT --
And it was an impressive start for Chavez, who seemingly silenced any critics suggesting he wouldn’t be a serviceable fit in Texas’ five-man rotation.\n\n“He definitely exposed \\[Detroit’s\\] weaknesses from a pitching standpoint,” Rangers manager Chris Woodward said. “He let their aggressiveness kind of work against them. There’s nobody better on our team at executing pitches, and that’s what he did all day.”\n\nChavez needed just 55 pitches in his first five innings, thanks largely to an eight-pitch inning and a pair of nine-pitch innings.
“I was just trying to get the guys in the dugout as quick as I can,” Chavez said. “With our offense, who knows what they can do any inning. If I get off the mound as quick as I can and give those guys a chance, good things will happen.”\n\nThe Tigers threatened in the ninth inning when Ronny Rodriguez hit a two-run homer off
“He knows he’s a big part of our lineup,” Woodward said. “You can’t replace a guy like Joey Gallo in the lineup. He knows he's important in there. He knows how important it is when he draws walks.”\n\nChavez (3-2, 2.79 ERA) was on a pitch count of 80 or so, but he cruised through five shutout innings before running into trouble in the sixth. He gave up three consecutive singles, one of which resulted in an
Chavez returned for the seventh inning and struck out Niko Goodrum before being lifted for Locke St. John, who retired the only two batters he faced in his Major League debut.\n\n“We’ve been dying to get \\[St. John\\] in there,” Woodward said. “I’ve felt like a bad manager not getting him in there before today.”\n\nChavez has now allowed only two earned runs in his last 22 appearances.
“We knew that they’re young and they love to swing the bat, so if you do make quality pitches early in counts, you get them off the barrel a little bit and you get a lot of first-pitch outs,” Woodward said. “That’s kind of what we saw.”\n\n