Ragans twirls five zeros for Spokane

A limited number of appearances during his first professional season and a rocky start in his first stint with Class A Short Season Spokane didn't provide much of a glimpse into Cole Ragans' full potential.
Thursday night's performance left plenty to gawk at.
The Rangers No. 8 prospect allowed one hit and a walk while striking out a career-high nine over five scoreless frames in the Indians' eventual 5-4 loss to the Tri-City Dust Devils at Gesa Stadium. Ragans threw 49 of 75 pitches for strikes in his second start of the season.

Gameday box score
In his Northwest League debut last Friday, the left-hander was tagged for four runs on three hits and six walks over four frames in Spokane's season-opening 5-4 loss to Boise.
After selecting him 30th overall in last year's Draft, the Rangers assigned Ragans to the Rookie-level Arizona League. The then-18-year-old made four appearances, including two starts, over a three-week period in August. He allowed four runs on 11 hits, striking out nine and walking six over 7 2/3 innings.
The 6-foot-4, 190-pound hurler put the difficult 2017 opener behind him against the Dust Devils. Ragans struck out the side in the first inning en route to retiring 13 in a row before Justin Lopez singled in the fourth. Ragans walked Luis Almanzar and fired a wild pitch that put both runners in scoring position.

The Crawfordville, Florida native rebounded with strikeouts of Luis Asuncion and Tre Carter to end the threat, and notched two more punchouts in the fifth to complete his outing. Eight of Ragans' strikeout victims went down swinging.
He exited with a 3-0 lead, but Tri-City pushed home the game-winning run in the ninth after first baseman Curtis Terry booted a grounder off the bat of Lopez.
Yohel Pozo plated two runs and Miguel Aparicio collected three singles and scored once for Spokane.
Almanzar doubled, singled and scored twice for Tri-City.