ARLINGTON, Texas -- Detroit Tigers rookie starter Michael Fulmer breezed through eight scoreless innings and entered the ninth with a seemingly safe 7-0 lead.
But he still had to sweat every pitch.
Yes, Fulmer had to retire the Texas Rangers for a final time, but he also had to do so before his pitch count climbed so high that manager Brad Ausmus would have no choice but to make a switch.
When he gave up a lead-off single to Nomar Mazara, Fulmer glanced over to the dugout.
When he started Ian Desmond off with three straight balls, he knew he was only one ball away from being pulled. He fought back to strike Desmond out.
Texas slugger Carlos Beltran was to be Fulmer's final batter one way or another. A hit, and Fulmer's day was done. Instead Beltran hit a sharp grounder to Ian Kinsler for the third out, giving Fulmer the first shutout and complete game of his career.
"It's special because it's the first, and hopefully there are many more to come in my career," Fulmer said.
By any measure, Sunday's game was the high point of his already impressive rookie season. Fulmer allowed only four hits, struck out nine and didn't walk a batter.
"I've got to believe that it's one of his highest moments, to have his first complete game, especially against an offense like that," said catcher James McCann.
After losing the series opener on Friday, the Tigers ended the series by throwing 21 consecutive scoreless innings and winning the final two games of the series against the first-place Rangers. And they did it at their home-run-friendly home park.
"Having come off a three-game sweep in Seattle, it's a nice turnaround to what could have been a very tough road trip," Ausmus said.
Minus a rough outing for Anibal Sanchez on Friday, Tigers pitchers had a 2.00 ERA in 54 innings during the six-game road trip.
"In baseball, momentum can last 10 minutes," Kinsler said. "Things change very quickly. But when you shut out the Rangers two games in a row, you feel good about yourself. It's a tough ballpark to pitch in and the guys that we had on the mound the last two days did a tremendous job. Hopefully our pitchers can continue the trend and we can get a bunch more wins in a row."
The Tigers, who are 16-3 when Fulmer starts, hope that he's on the mound for many more wins down the stretch.
But Ausmus has acknowledged the Tigers are counting both innings and pitches with an eye toward limiting Fulmer's workload in 2016.
Ausmus believes Fulmer can make it to the end of the season if the Tigers use him wisely. But his tendency to pitch deep into games -- although in a very pitch-efficient manner -- is making them reconsider some of their assumptions.
"He's making it increasingly difficult to keep his innings down," Ausmus said dryly.
When a reporter suggested that the situation might resolve itself, Ausmus replied, "If he keeps going nine, it's not going to resolve itself."
At the moment, Fulmer is at 120 innings (not including 15 in Triple-A Toledo). He's faced 474 batters and thrown about 1,800 pitches.
The Tigers have no firm limit, but Ausmus said they will use upcoming off days to spread out his starts and might even use a spot starter occasionally when rosters expand in September.
"We're going to have to do something -- push him back, skip him at some point," Ausmus said. "If he keeps pitching like this, we might have to do it more than once, because we'd like to have him around all the way through."
Ausmus could have saved two innings and a few dozen pitches by pulling Fulmer after the seventh Sunday, with the game well in hand.
But Ausmus opted to leave him in. After he breezed through the eighth, Fulmer returned to the dugout without approaching Ausmus or his pitching coach, not knowing for sure whether he would stay in for the ninth.
"I just did my normal thing and sat down and Brad never came and got me," Fulmer said. "My mindset was just staying focused to go back out for the ninth and try to get a win for the team."
Ausmus said he "didn't think twice" about taking Fulmer out after eight.
"There was no wrestling (with the decision)," he said. "It was an opportunity for his first complete game shutout."
Fulmer got the job done, much to the delight of family and friends who had come from his home in the Oklahoma City area to cheer him on.
They saw Fulmer become the American League ERA leader (he qualified after surpassing the innings requirement on Sunday) and bolster his Rookie of the Year resume.
"He made a pretty good case for it today and he's done it all year," Ausmus said.