Derek Holland Pitches Complete Game Shut Out as the Texas Rangers Beat the Seattle Mariners

24-year-old Derek Holland threw his 4th complete career game of his career in the Rangers 5-0 shut out of the Seattle Mariners. Derek Holland has now thrown back-to-back complete game shut-outs in his last two starts. Both of which have come against division rivals. The previous shut-out came July 7th in a 6-0 win over the Oakland A's.

In this game, Holland got through the first 15 batters without any trouble. However, Franklin Gutierrez finally got on base on a walk and the next batter,Chone Figgins, logged the first Mariner hit of the game. The Mariner's had a total of 5 on the night. With the win, Holland improves to 8 wins on the season, matching his career high.

Holland had this to say about the hit:

"I just got caught looking at the scoreboard at the wrong time. I got a reminder when I walked that guy and the crowd started cheering. I knew I needed to bear down. I gave up the perfect game but had to keep going from there." -AP

Holland is the first Rangers pitcher to throw consecutive shutouts since Charlie Hough in 1983. He's the first Rangers pitcher with three shutouts in a season since Ken Hill in 1996.

Over on the offensive side, Josh Hamilton got things started for the Rangers in 1st with a solo shot to right to put the Rangers on the board(12th of the season). Nelson Cruz then responded on his first at bat in the following inning with a solo homer of his own(21st of the season). Making it a 2-0 Ranger lead. Michael Young hit a single to drive home speedster Elvis Andrus in the 3rd and extend the Ranger lead to 3. Not to be left out, Mike Napoli hit the longest one of the night, going 395 feet with his solo shot in the 6th (13th of the season) and Andrus singled in the 6th to score Craig Gentry and round out the scoring for the Rangers.

The AL-West leading Texas Rangers are currently on an 8 game win streak and hold a 1.5 game lead over the LA Angels.