Photos: Leslie Plaza Johnson and John Bunch/Icon Sportswire

Did you happen to catch Nathan Eovaldi’s seven innings of one-hit ball last Tuesday against the Padres?

If you did, you saw not only Eovaldi pitch a gem, but the Rangers field some gems. Their combined defensive effort on the batted balls against Eovaldi was worth 2 Runs Saved.

There was some impressive range.

Some smart defensive positioning

And some good luck.

With a few other niceties mixed in.

This isn’t unusual.

By our measures the Rangers have saved 17 runs on the batted balls hit against Eovaldi this season, the most by any team for any pitcher in 2024.

It’s often thought that the difference between a pitcher’s ERA and FIP can be attributed to either luck, performance with runners in scoring position, or the caliber of a team’s defensive play. In Eovaldi’s case, it seems like the difference between his 3.10 ERA and 3.74 FIP is a product of the Rangers’ defense. There are pitchers with lower BABIPs than Eovaldi who have not received this kind of defense behind them.

Two other things we’ve noticed about the Rangers’ defense behind Eovaldi.

One would be how good Marcus Semien has been. Four of his 10 Runs Saved on batted balls have come when Eovaldi’s pitched. The whole Rangers infield has been great. It has turned 83% of the grounders and bunts against him into outs, the 5th-highest rate in MLB (minimum 60 grounders and bunts) and a rate 10 percentage points higher than MLB average.

The other would be that the Rangers have played mistake-free. In addition to tracking errors, our Video Scouts also track Defensive Misplays. These incorporate things like if a fielder slipped and fell, or if a potential double play was botched by a poor glove-to-hand exchange. We have more than 60 categories of Misplays.

The Rangers have had only 3 Defensive Misplays and Errors with Eovaldi on the mound. Eovaldi’s teammates, Andrew Heaney and Jon Gray, each been victimized by 11 Misplays & Errors, Jose Urena 8, and Michael Lorenzen by 7 in a comparable number of innings. Dane Dunning is the one other pitcher in their rotation for whom the Rangers have limited their misplays. They’ve committed 4 for him.

Eovaldi next pitches for the Rangers on Saturday against the Astros.

Here are the MLB leaders in most Defensive Runs Saved support on batted balls against them.