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Derek Holland Can’t Command Secondary Pitches, And Texas Rangers Are Back In Second Place

ARLINGTON - On Saturday night at Rangers Ballpark, Derek Holland’s trip through secondary school continued with lower grades than he achieved last weekend under a seemingly more severe test in San Francisco. He depended on his primary fastball early and left in the sixth inning with a schizophrenic outing that included his major league highs (all of six starts) in strikeouts, hits and earned runs. With the 22-year-old Holland sticking to his fastball, the Rangers lost 7-3 and head into Sunday night needing to win to take the series from the team with the third-worst record in the National League.

After Saturday’s play, they’re staring up at the Los Angeles Angels for the first time since early May. Starting on June 12, the Angels are 11-3 and the Rangers 6-8, giving LAA a half-game lead.

The Rangers are 1-5 in Holland’s starts with him going 0-4. For the team’s other regular starters, the club’s W-L record is as follows: Vicente Padilla 9-4, Scott Feldman 8-4, Kevin Millwood 9-7, Brandon McCarthy 6-5 and Matt Harrison 5-6.

Holland’s ERA as a starter increased to 6.27 (23 earned runs in 33 innings) as he was touched for six earned runs and 13 hits while striking out eight in 5.2 innings. Against the Giants, with the second-best record in the N.L., he allowed only four hits and one earned run in seven innings.

“In San Francisco, his secondary stuff was better,” manager Ron Washington said. “He was able to locate it and get it over. Then they couldn’t just sit on the fastball. He spotted his fastball much better last time out.”

Holland came out charging Saturday night by retiring the side in order on 11 pitches with swinging strikeouts of David Eckstein and Scott Hairston on fastballs. But that’s where his approach stayed in the second inning, and the Padres pounced. After Adrian Gonzalez opened with a groundout, Kevin Kouzmanoff singled up the middle on a first-pitch fastball. Chase Headley singled to right on a 1-0 fastball. Rookie Kyle Blanks (and a big one at 6-6, 285) doubled to left on a first-pitch fastball. The ancient Henry Blanco singled to center on a first-pitch fastball. No. 9 hitter Everth Cabrera, a Rule 5 pick-up, hit an 0-1 fastball up the middle for a single for a 3-0 lead.

Back to the top of the order and Tony Gywnn Jr., Holland started him off with two sliders and got him to ground out on a 2-1 fastball. Eckstein went after a first-pitch fastball and grounded to first to end the inning.

Holland went to more breaking pitches after that and got four swinging strikeouts on sliders over the next four innings. “I still went after the hitters,” he said. “I didn’t give up. They [the hits] just kept going in the holes.”

San Diego went into the game hitting .223 against lefties. Against Holland, they were 13-for-31 (.419). Meanwhile, Padres righty Kevin Correia had his fourth consecutive solid outing to even his record at 5-5. In his seven innings, he provided nine of the San Diego staff’s 11 strikeouts – six of them looking. After the Texas offensive outbursts of the last two nights, only Michael Young managed two hits.

Next up is another 22-year-old Rangers starter with righty Tommy Hunter (0-0, 5.06 in one game) coming in to face the Padres’ Chad Gaudin (3-6, 5.60) in another stop-gap situation since Harrison returned to the disabled list. At OkC, Hunter is 3-2 with a 3.83 ERA in eight starts, and Sunday was his regular day to start.