Late night: Rangers 4, Twins 3, 13 innings

Josh Willingham dropped to the ground while leading
off first base in the fourth inning Sunday when a
bolt of lightning struck near the ballpark in
Arlington, Texas.

Box score here

Game story here

The Twins were one strike away. Numerous times.

We can lay the blame on Brian Dozier, whose error opened the ninth inning disaster. But even after that runner scored, Glen Perkins had a two-run lead with two outs in the ninth.

Then: Single, double, single — the latter two with two strikes — and the game was tied.

Too many bad pitches to good hitters. Or too many good pitches to good hitters. Perkins threw 28 pitches, and 25 of them were strikes.

But let us give credit to Cole DeVries. The Minnesota native shut out the best team in the American League for seven innings  — three hits, one walk, five strikeouts. Very sharp pitching performance.

He now has an ERA in the majors of 3.00 after five starts and one relief outing, a total of 30 innings.

We all know how desperate the Twins are for starting pitching, and an ERA of 3.00 almost certainly means more chances for DeVries. But we shouldn't expect him to maintain it; even with that very nice ERA, he's surrendered six home runs — one long ball every five innings. Nobody can feed the gophers that often and keep a respectable ERA. One of those stats has to give, and his minor league record, and his mediocre velocity, say it will be the ERA that gets worse.

He may never have a game this good again in the majors. But he certainly has this one.