Wilson Goes All the Way: Rangers 4 Royals 1

In just six starts, C.J. Wilson has come full circle in his quest to become an established, elite starter.

Wilson pitched all nine innings, outdueling reining Cy Young Award Winner Zack Greinke and leading the Rangers to a 4-1 victory. The crowd chanted “C.J.” in support during the final inning. According to the broadcast, Friday marked the first time Wilson went nine innings since 2001 when he was in the minors. Wilson was credited with a complete game in a rain-shortened loss to the Yankees on April 16th.

Wilson improved to 3-1 and lowered his ERA to 1.51. He remains third in the league in the ERA category. Greinke was not bad, but he wasn’t as good as Wilson. He drops to 0-4, not because of pitching poorly but because the Royals can’t score him any runs. They must have used up their run allotment with the dozen they scored last night.

Although this game proved very different than last night, one thing will always remain the same: Vladimir Guerrero loves Rangers Ballpark. Guerrero hit the first ball of the second inning from Greinke out to left field. Guerrero homered in three consecutive at-bats going back to last night’s thrilling game-winner.

David Murphy, who has played right field while Nelson Cruz (a.k.a. Little Vlad) is on the disabled list, doubled and scored the Rangers’ second run of the inning after shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt dropped a routine popup.

After Julio Borbon and Elvis Andrus reached in the third, Guerrero helped again with a deep fly ball to score a run. In the top half of the third, Wilson showed a bit of a blip, allowing a single to Betancourt, hitting David DeJesus and giving up an RBI single to Billy Butler.

It probably felt good for Borbon to get a multiple-hit night under his belt, too, Borbon, who has been struggling to get on base, doubled to start the fifth. Like he usually does, Andrus sacrificed him to second, and Young singled him home.

Borbon also singled in the sixth.

With two hits in each of the last two games, Young has bumped his average up to .274 and seems to be in a groove offensively.

All the Rangers runs went against Greinke, who pitched seven innings, struck out three and walked one.

We’ll have to wait and see what Wilson’s next move is.