ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Mike Napoli hit homers in his first two at-bats Saturday, and Yorvit Torrealba, Adrian Beltre and Ian Kinsler also went deep to back Yu Darvish in the Rangers' 9-2 victory over the Angels.
The victory pushed the Rangers' advantage in the American League West back to six games ahead of the series finale Sunday night.Darvish (11-6) won for the first time since June 26 after allowing two runs in seven innings, a nice rebound from the career-high seven runs he allowed in 6 1/3 innings last weekend at Seattle.He struck out 11 batters, hitting double digits for a majors-leading sixth time this season, and broke the club record for 10-strikeout games by a rookie (Bobby Witt, 1986).The Angels' first run against him came in the third when he walked No. 8 batter Erick Aybar and hit John Hester to start the inning. Mike Trout followed with an RBI single. But the tally made the score just 7-1 as the Rangers' offense ripped Ervin Santana early on.Michael Young brought in the game's first run with a two-out single in the first to score Elvis Andrus. Napoli start the second with a homer on the first pitch, and Torreabla followed with another long ball as the Rangers went back-to-back for the sith time this season.Craig Gentry and Ian Kinsler put together consecutive doubles for a 4-1 lead, and Adrian Beltre brought in Kinsler two batters later with the Rangers' third homer of the inning. The Beltre blast, his 18th, also ended the day for Santana.Napoli struck again in the third, this time with one out against David Carpenter.The Rangers' bats fell mostly silent the next four innings until Kinsler connect for a two-run shot in the eighth. The Rangers finished with with 15 hits, and Torrealba finished a triple shy of hitting for the cycle in his first game since his daughter was born Tuesday.-- Jeff Wilson
Rangers' Gentry shows he has the right stuff
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