Who predicted that the first starter in the Tigers' impressive rotation to reach 10 wins would be Rick Porcello?
Before the season, probably not many considering Porcello has two Cy Young winners, Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, and the AL ERA winner, Anibal Sanchez, as teammates.
Yet Porcello improved to 10-4 Thursday night in Texas, shutting out the Rangers, 6-0, for his first career complete-game shutout.
The Tigers (43-32) completed a three-game sweep of the Rangers (35-43) and extended their winning streak to seven games.
Porcello limited the Rangers to three hits, all singles.
"I had a good sinker," Porcello told FOX Sports Detroit's Trevor Thompson on the field after the game. "The humidity helped a lot, actually, ball was sinking a lot more today. I'm pretty pleased with keeping the ball on the ground and Alex (Avila) did a great job of keeping me intact back there when I had a couple runners on, a couple walks. He calmed me down and defense played great, too."
Porcello got 16 ground-ball outs, including three double-plays. He only needed 30 pitches for his last three innings after throwing 22 in the first.
"He had spells where he was up but for the most part he was down," Tigers manager Brad Ausmus told Thompson. "I think what helped him is he was on the corners a little bit more. But when he's down, he's very tough, especially against right-handed hitters."
Before Thursday night, Porcello had struggled against the Rangers, going 3-4 with a 7.41 ERA in seven starts.
Porcello, 25, became just the third pitcher in MLB history to win 10 or more games in each of his first six seasons before turning 26.
The other two are Bert Blyleven and Dennis Eckersley. Not bad company to be in.
"He was money (Thursday night)," FOX Sports Detroit color analyst Rod Allen said on the post-game show. "Rick Porcello, ever since putting on a Tigers uniform, cool, calm and collected, never gets rattled out on the mound. He was at his best here."
In his last two starts (16 innings), Porcello has not allowed a single run.
There was some discussion between Ausmus and pitching coach Jeff Jones about whether Porcello would get the chance to close out the game as he was already at 105 pitches through eight innings. His season high was 110.
"Just worried about the pitch count," Ausmus told Thompson. "We don't want him going much above 115, maybe top out at 120. A 15-pitch inning is a good inning. It's kind of a tall task to ask him to get through the inning but he was able to do it."
Porcello finished with 115 pitches.
"I was definitely excited," Porcello said. "I heard Brad and Jonesy talking and I wasn't sure if they were going to let me go back out there but I'm happy they did."
Porcello had a complete game under his belt, Sept. 10, 2013 at the Chicago White Sox, but it was not a shutout.
Nick Castellanos was in Chicago for Porcello's first complete game.
"To actually be a part of playing in the second one is awesome," Castellanos told Thompson. "Ricky did his job from the first inning and even when he got in trouble, with getting the lead-off guy on, it seems like every time he made the next pitch and got a double play. It was fantastic."
The Tigers staked Porcello to an early 4-0 lead by the third inning, two of those runs courtesy of a two-run single by Austin Jackson.
"He looked pretty comfortable out there the whole night," Jackson said. "I'm not sure if it wouldn't have been the same outcome. He had all his pitches working pretty good tonight. he was throwing strikes and getting those ground-ball outs like he always does."
Porcello is now tied for second in the majors in wins with Toronto's Mark Buehrle, Cincinnati's Alfredo Simon and St. Louis' Adam Wainwright. Only the New York Yankees' Masahiro Tanaka has more with 11 wins.
At this rate, Porcello could be heading to Minnesota for the All-Star Game next month.
