The Rangers made it far more dramatic than it needed to be, but they still walked out with a 7-6 win and moved back into first place by a half game.
For most of the night, Texas looked like it was cruising toward a comfortable finish. Nathan Eovaldi had Reid Detmers under control, the offense kept stacking runs, and by the time the game reached the seventh inning, the Rangers were up 6-1. It should have been a bigger cushion than that, but the early work was strong enough that the whole thing felt in hand.
Eovaldi was the centerpiece of it. Through six innings, he was carving.
He allowed just one run in that span, and even that came with a little help from the defense. After a Wade Meckler single, Zach Neto hit a hard ball to third that Josh Jung couldn’t handle.
It was a playable chance, maybe even a double play, but the ball caromed off Jung’s glove for a single. By the end of the sequence, Meckler was at third and Neto had moved to second on the throw.
That was about the only real blemish before things got messy. Eovaldi finished with 10 strikeouts, which pushed him past Ken Holtzman, Jim Maloney, and Jose Rijo on the all-time strikeouts list.
He’s now 196th all time, with Hoyt Wilhelm, Scott Sanderson and Claude Osteen ahead of him. He also generated 23 swings and misses, including 10 on his splitter and nine on his curveball, which was especially sharp.
The Rangers built the lead quickly against Detmers. Brandon Nimmo got Texas started with a strange opposite-field line drive homer that looked like it might settle for a double before it kept carrying.
Josh Jung followed with a double, Jake Burger added a single, and Texas was up 2-0. Ezequiel Duran then made it a bigger night with a two-run homer in the third.
Justin Foscue added a solo shot in the fourth, then came back in the sixth with an RBI ground-rule double that would have been worth two runs if the ball hadn’t bounced into the stands.
Foscue’s night kept making the case that there’s something real here against lefties. He’s now slashing .367/.466/.796 off left-handers this season.
He also owns a .398 wOBA and a .371 xwOBA, which points to more than just good fortune. It’s still a small sample - 113 plate appearances for the Rangers this year - but it’s the kind of production that makes you think the right-handed platoon bat Texas has been searching for may finally be here.
Wyatt Langford also returned from the injured list and started at DH, though the night didn’t look especially smooth for him until the end. He was hitless with three strikeouts through his first four plate appearances and came up in the ninth with the game hanging in the balance.
Alejandro Osuna had singled to start the inning, Nicky Lopez bunted him to second, and then Langford delivered. He lined a ball to left that hit off the base of the fence.
It only counted as a single because Osuna was the winning run, but it was enough to finish the job.
That finish mattered because the seventh inning turned the game into a mess. The Rangers had to survive catcher’s interference, a walk and a single to open the frame, and the bullpen had to patch things together after that.
Peyton Gray and Tyler Alexander were both part of the inning, though the cleanest work came from Jacob Latz, who recorded outs 22 through 26 for Texas. Then Cole Winn was asked to handle Jo Adell with two on and two out in the ninth after Latz’s 11-pitch walk of Vaughn Grissom pushed him over 40 pitches.
Adell had been all over the place in this series, with a pair of hits on Tuesday, a pair of homers on Wednesday, and a pinch-hit single in that seventh inning to help tie the game. But Winn got the last word when Adell smoked a line drive that fortunately went straight at Evan Carter.
The final result was a win that felt like it was slipping away before Texas grabbed it back. The Rangers got the double-you, and the standings took care of the rest.
Eovaldi’s fastball topped out at 97.9 mph and averaged 95.7, which was 1.1 mph above his season average. Peyton Gray reached 93.6 mph, Tyler Alexander topped out at 92.8 mph, Jacob Latz touched 96.8 mph, and Cole Winn threw one fastball at 96.6 mph.
The hardest-hit balls also told part of the story. Jake Burger had a 112.6 mph fly out, a 105.5 mph fly out, and a 101.3 mph single.
Josh Jung had a 106.7 mph fly out, a 106.7 mph double and a 102.5 mph fly out. Brandon Nimmo posted a 106.0 mph ground out, a 104.4 mph homer and a 104.2 mph single.
Alejandro Osuna had a 104.5 mph single. Justin Foscue’s homer came off the bat at 104.0 mph, the same mark as Ezequiel Duran’s homer.
Kyle Higashioka added a 101.3 mph single.
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That matters now because the Rangers are heading into the draft with the 16th overall pick and a front office that can point to a recent track record instead of a hope-and-pray philosophy. The bigger question is whether this run of hits is the start of a true organizational edge or just a strong stretch that still needs one more impact player to make it feel complete. [Read more 🡒]