The Texas Rangers didn’t waste much time making their point Tuesday night, and Nathan Eovaldi made sure the Seattle Mariners never had a real answer.
Texas rolled to a 7-1 win, jumping ahead early and then letting Eovaldi do what he does best: take the pressure out of the building. The Rangers got the kind of start they needed from a lineup that, on paper, didn’t look especially imposing, and they backed it up with seven runs while Seattle managed only one.
The first inning set the tone. Seattle gave regular center fielder Julio Rodriguez a half day as its designated hitter and shifted Luke Raley into center, and that decision quickly turned costly. Raley dove for an Ezequiel Duran flare to the right field gap and missed it, allowing Wyatt Langford, who had doubled ahead of Duran, to score the game’s first run while Duran ended up at third.
From there, Texas kept stacking. Brandon Nimmo worked an 0-2 count into a walk, Duran scored on an Evan Carter double, and Nimmo came home on a Nicky Lopez groundout. In the next inning, the Rangers added two more with a Joc Pederson stolen base, another Langford double, and an RBI single from Duran.
That early burst was especially important given the context around the Rangers’ offense and the month they’d been having from their starters. Texas entered the night with the worst starters ERA in the majors this month, and the lineup featured, at first blush, about a handful of actual big league-quality batters. Even with that, they got out to a 3-0 lead right away and never gave it back.
Bryan Woo did manage to settle in and go five innings, but the Rangers had already done the damage. They added two more in the seventh, when Alejandro Osuna, one of the bottom-of-the-order bats, delivered a two-run double to put the game away.
The win moved Texas back to two games above .500, matching where they were at the All-Star break, and gave them a season-best two and a half game lead in the American League West. With one more win in the series, the Rangers can take it outright and leave no worse than atop the division, though Seattle is no longer in second place after the Astros moved ahead of them in the standings.
Still, the biggest reason this one never felt close was Eovaldi. After allowing three home runs in his first start of the second half against Atlanta, he answered with a classic performance against a team that came in behind Texas in the standings. Eovaldi threw seven innings, allowed one run on three hits and a walk, and struck out eight on just 91 pitches.
He was in complete control, the kind of control that makes a game feel comfortable even when the margin isn’t massive. For the Rangers, that was the difference. For Eovaldi, it was another reminder of how often he shows up when the moment calls for it.
Wyatt Langford also turned in a big night, finishing 3-for-4 with two doubles, two runs scored, and an RBI. Ezequiel Duran added key production early and finished with an RBI single and the two-run double that helped seal it.
The only real concern for Texas came with Langford, who fouled a couple of painful-looking pitches off his foot before one of his doubles and later left after six innings.
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