Reid Detmers carved up the Texas Rangers lineup Sunday night at Angel Stadium, striking out 14 batters while retiring the final 21 hitters he faced in what became his best start of the season.
The Angels left-hander was locked in from the sixth inning on. With one out, he froze Michael Helman on three pitches, finishing the Rangers center fielder with an 86-mph slider that caught the corner.
Detmers wasn’t done showcasing his command.
After a first-pitch ball to Kyle Higashioka, Detmers collected his 10th strikeout of the night, getting the catcher to chase another 86-mph slider. That’s 10 strikeouts in his first 19 batters faced.
The game stayed knotted at 1-1, but Detmers kept dealing.
In the seventh, he followed the same script. Brandon Nimmo went down looking on a 94-mph four-seamer, then Justin Foscue chased an 84-mph slider for strikeout number 12 in 22 chances.
Here’s the thing about Detmers and the Rangers – he’s got their number.
Coming into Sunday with a 5.07 ERA, you wouldn’t expect dominance like this. But against Texas specifically, Detmers has held hitters to a .118 batting average, allowing just six hits in 51 at-bats with a 41.8 percent strikeout rate.
The timing couldn’t have been better for a breakout performance. Detmers had dropped three straight decisions heading into Sunday, including a rough outing Tuesday where he struggled with location. His May 8 start was even worse – six walks in just 3.2 innings.
That’s a far cry from 2025, when Detmers worked out of the bullpen and posted a 3.96 ERA over 61 relief appearances, though he did blow five saves.
But Sunday belonged to the starter version of Detmers.
He opened the eighth with strikeouts of Ezequiel Duran and Danny Jansen, then got Sam Haggerty to ground out weakly. After giving up a second-inning homer to Jake Burger, that was it for Texas offense.
Detmers faced one batter over the minimum and finished with 14 strikeouts – a season-high that felt inevitable once he found his groove. The game was still tied 1-1 when he left after the eighth, but he’d done everything the Angels could ask for.
When you can locate that slider like Detmers did Sunday, even a struggling season can turn around quickly. The Rangers found that out the hard way.
