Jordan Montgomery has gritty World Series start for Rangers, but no Ks in his first postseason loss

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — As gritty as Jordan Montgomery was in his first World Series start for the Texas Rangers, including an unexpected third time through the middle of an Arizona lineup that had already hurt him, the left-hander just wasn’t at his best.

“Just kind of tried to piece together as many outs as I could for the guys,” Montgomery said after his first postseason loss. “Obviously I didn’t have my best stuff. But you’re not going to be perfect out there every time. And just sometimes you’ve just got to grit.”

Five days after pitching 2 1/3 innings in relief to win the deciding Game 7 in the AL Championship Series, Montgomery’s sinker velocity was down from his season average, as was the spin on his curveball. He got only two swing-and-misses while pitching into the seventh inning and didn’t record a single strikeout.

Montgomery allowed four runs and nine hits as the Rangers fell 9-1 to the Diamondbacks. That evened the series at a game apiece going into Game 3 at Arizona on Monday night.

“He was pitching well. Here he was in the seventh, the pitch count was good, had a one-run ballgame,” manager Bruce Bochy said when asked if Montgomery’s second career relief outing threw him out of his normal routine. “That’s always a hard one to answer. But he felt good. ... I don’t know how much it affected him, but he’s not saying it did.”

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Montgomery, who threw 50 of his 75 pitches for strikes and walked only one batter, said he was on his regular rest and had a good bullpen session after the ALCS clincher.

“Pretty much one or two mistakes that hurt us, but other than that, I thought he pitched really well,” All-Star catcher Jonah Heim said.

Nathan Eovaldi and Montgomery provided the wild-card Rangers quite a 1-2 punch at the top of their rotation by going undefeated through the first three rounds of the playoffs. Neither one of them could repeat that when lined up to open the World Series, though Texas rallied for an 11-inning win in the opener after Big Game Nate, their All-Star pitcher, couldn’t make it out of the fifth.

A trade-deadline acquisition from the St. Louis Cardinals, the 30-year-old who is eligible for free agency after the season had been 3-0 with a 2.16 ERA in his first five playoff games.

Montgomery became the first pitcher to complete six innings in a World Series game without a strikeout since Atlanta’s Greg Maddux in Game 2 against the New York Yankees in 1996. The last starter without any Ks was Yu Darvish for the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 7 against Houston in 2017 — though he didn’t get out of the second inning. Darvish was also pulled in the second and didn’t strike out anyone in Game 3 of that series.

The Rangers’ bullpen was stirring in the fifth inning, just like in Game 1. But Montgomery got out of it on consecutive popouts by Ketel Martel and Corbin Carroll, the top two batters in Arizona’s lineup.

It certainly looked like that could be the end of the night for Montgomery, considering what was coming up next.

Arizona had gone ahead 2-0 in a four-batter stretch in the fourth, when Gabriel Moreno homered, Tommy Pham hit a out-out double and Lourdes Gurriel drove in Pham with a single. The only out in that span was on All-Star rookie third baseman Josh Jung’s incredible defensive play, when he made a backhanded diving stop, got up in foul territory and threw out Christian Walker at first.

But Montgomery came back out in the sixth and Moreno swung at the first pitch, dribbling a ball about 3 feet in front of the plate — about 410 feet shorter than his homer — where Heim pounced on the ball. Walker popped up the third pitch before Pham doubled for the third of his four hits and Gurriel was intentionally walked. Montgomery then picked off Pham, who got too far off second base, to end the inning.

“Executed some good changeups and got some quick outs,” Montgomery said. “Pham put another good good swing on a sinker, put it down the line, and caught him a little overaggressive at second.”

With the bottom of the order due, the lefty went back out for the seventh, but gave up consecutive hits to the Nos. 7-8 batters, the first a left-hander. That ended Montgomery’s night, and both eventually scored to put Arizona up 4-1.

“He was pitching well. He’s done such a great job,” Bochy said. “You look at the man, he’s got the ability to pitch if it’s down a tick a little bit. And he showed that tonight.”

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