Win No. 1
The Texas Rangers scored four runs while the Boston Red Sox scored one run.
If the worst thing that happened to Jack Leiter tonight was getting doinked on the dick by a wayward return toss, I’m sure he’d take it.
Wherein Jack Leiter takes a return throw right off the dick
A surprise addition to the opening week rotation, after a winter where he was written off as best case an option for long relief, Leiter saw an uptick in stuff during the spring and that carried over to tonight as well in his first start of the year.
Not many would have guessed that Leiter would take the bump before a healthy Jacob deGrom, but at the very least, Leiter made the most of his chance against a tough lineup and the Rangers have their first win of the season thanks in part to Leiter’s night.
Helping Leiter out was his batterymate Jonah Heim. Heim, who famously torpedoed so hard last season that the Rangers had to spend some of their scant remaining payroll dollars on getting Heim a better co-catcher. That said, Heim is hopefully due a dead cat bounce in 2025 and in his first start of the season, he hit two solo home runs — Texas’ only dongs so far this season — to help Leiter qualify for the win.
Heim started the 2023 All-Star game, is a gold glove winner, and was a huge, tireless part of the engine that chugged along a couple of Octobers ago to help the Rangers claim a World Series. If he’s better than his terrible 2024 season, the team from Arlington will benefit greatly.
Bonus good news from tonight: A quintet of Rangers relief arms — Shawn Armstrong, Marc Church, Hoby Milner, Jacob Webb, and Luke Jackson — tossed four scoreless innings, with only Church running into much of an issue, albeit while making his MLB debut, so he was perhaps feeling a little nervous.
Jackson’s bounce-back inning also gave him the save, perhaps signaling that indeed the Rangers will continue to give Jackson the first crack at the closer job.
Player of the Game: Heim’s two bombs were nice to see but you have to like how Leiter began his 2025 season, with his first inning in particular looking like the best he’s ever been at the big league level.
Jack Leiter did it all himself in the first inning. He got Jarren Duran to groundout to himself. He then struck out Rafael Devers and Alex Bregman
Here’s that swinging K vs Bregman on a 99 mph four-seamer pic.twitter.com/VrRWiBmVNd
— kennedi landry (@kennlandry) March 29, 2025
Overall, Leiter went five innings and gave up a run on five hits importantly with just one walk and four strikeouts. For his effort, Leiter earned his first Major League win. It may have taken a little longer than we expected when he was drafted No. 2 overall in 2021, but he’s here and now he’s a winner.
Up Next: The Rangers will try to get the upper hand in this series with RHP Tyler Mahle making his 2025 debut for Texas against LHP Walker Buehler making his first start with the Red Sox.
The Saturday evening first pitch from The Shed is set for an hour earlier at 6:05 pm CT and you can catch the telecast on the Rangers Sports Network.