Texas Rangers starting pitcher Nathan Eovaldi delivers during the first inning of a baseball game against the Minnesota Twins, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Abbie Parr/AP Photo/Abbie Parr
MINNEAPOLIS — It isn’t October yet, but in the Midwest, at least, there was a slight nip in the air.
It could’ve been the overcast skies and rain showers.
Or it might’ve just been Nathan Eovaldi’s cue.
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“What he provided was just insane,” Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said. “That was one of the gutsiest performances I’ve seen in a long time.”
The Rangers won 6-2 against the Minnesota Twins at Target Field Saturday night and kept their postseason dreams alive because of the postseason hero’s first start in nearly two months. The win, which came after a two-hour rain delay, pulled them into sole possession of first place in the AL West with a half-game lead over the Houston Astros.
The Rangers’ in-state rival, however, beat the Athletics 13-2 in Sacramento on Saturday night. The two teams are once again tied atop the division, setting up the following clinch or elimination scenarios for Sunday.
The Rangers need a win against the Twins and an Astros loss against the Athletics in game 162 to clinch a postseason berth.
If the two teams finish the regular season tied, the Astros will advance to the postseason, and the Rangers will be left out because of the regular season tiebreaker.
It was Eovaldi, who pitched 4 1/3 innings of one-run ball in a must-win game, that helped make the above scenarios a reality. Eovaldi hadn’t started a game since Aug. 7 due to a case of elbow inflammation that landed him on the injured list for more than a month. He yielded a 3.21 ERA and relatively mixed results in four relief appearances since he returned but never threw more than 46 pitches in any of them.
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Schumaker thought that Eovaldi could go “maybe three innings” in Saturday’s game.
He nearly went five, threw 71 pitches, and might’ve even been able to pitch deeper into the game if the Rangers didn’t have a fresh-for-their-standards bullpen to work with.
“He told us that he was going to be honest with us inning-to-inning,” Schumaker said. “Then it went from ‘be honest with us hitter-to-hitter.’ Do I think that he could’ve had the top of the order one more time? Maybe, but I didn’t know if he’d have over 50 pitches, but he just kept going, and it kept looking good. That’s when you start trusting the player, trusting the competitor, and I knew that I was going to get everything he had.”
Eovaldi allowed a run in the bottom of the first inning when right fielder Luke Keaschall doubled and scored on second baseman Kody Clemens’ groundout, but after that, he threw like the big game pitcher he is. The two-time World Series champion faced the minimum in the second inning, stranded two runners in scoring position in the third and logged a perfect fourth before he was removed in the fifth.
The 36-year-old exited in the bottom of the fifth inning with one out and runners on the corners. He was replaced by left-handed pitcher Robert Garcia who, against Keaschall, a hot right-handed hitter, needed only four pitches to induce an inning-ending double play.
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“I was confident that I’d be able to have a high pitch count,” Eovaldi said. “It was more so just try to get as fast of outs as possible and make it hard for them to take the ball away.”
It’s not like the Rangers would have been in a rush to do so anyways. The bullpen has thrown more innings (105) than their rotation has (99) this month as they’ve continued to navigate a beat-up staff. They haven’t gotten six innings out of a starting pitcher since Sep. 13 and have only gotten five or more three times since then. Their ace, right-handed pitcher Jacob deGrom, was tagged for eight earned runs in their most-recent must-win game the night prior.
And Eovaldi — owner of a career 3.05 ERA in the playoffs, anchor of the franchise’s only championship team, leader of the pitching staff and chief of well-timed responses — was the best-equipped person for the job.
“It’s awesome, for what he means to this org, and this team, having him get the ball in the biggest game of the year,” catcher Danny Jansen said. “It’s incredible.”
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