Texas Rangers: Three players who could be first-time All-Stars

#2 – LHP Brock Burke (long relief)

Relief pitchers who are not closers very rarely make the All-Star Game in a typical year. Rays Swiss army knife Andrew Kittredge in 2021 and Brewers righty Jeremy Jeffress in 2018 are the only recent examples of this that comes to mind.

Enter Rangers lefty Brock Burke. A starting pitcher throughout his entire minor league and major league career to this point, Burke has functioned exclusively as a relief pitcher this season for the club and it has paid off in a big way.

Through 14 games and 24+ innings, Burke has allowed just three earned runs, good for a sparkling 1.09 ERA to go along with a 2.00 FIP and a jaw-dropping 358 ERA+. While this pace may not quite be sustainable, the young lefty has certainly been turning heads.

Burke is still just 25 years of age and may have found his niche on a big league pitching staff. His strikeouts are way up, his HR/9 is way down and he’s even experienced a significant increase in his velocity. His four-seam fastball is up 3mph from his 2019 showing in the big leagues while his slider is up 4mph and his changeup is up nearly 3mph as well.

There may not be a better way to describe Brock Burke than the way Twitter user @greggorox has.