Bullpen carries Rangers to victory over Tigers

The first two innings Sunday night weren’t as bad as Yu Darvish has pitched in his career, but he was far from his best at Comerica Park.

He needed 56 pitches to record six outs. He walked four batters after walking only five in his first three starts of the month. He twice surrendered one-run leads.

The right-hander had only three more innings in him before his pitch count hit 105 and Texas Rangers manager Jeff Banister had no choice but to remove his staff ace.

That left the game in the hands of the bullpen, a prospect that still makes many queasy despite the relievers’ recent run of quality pitching.

Maybe it’s time to have a little more faith.

Alex Claudio, Sam Dyson and Keone Kela tossed four scoreless innings in relief of Darvish, and Mike Napoli and Pete Kozma swatted solo home runs as the Rangers beat the Detroit Tigers 5-2 to win the three-game series.

Dyson said that the bullpen never lost its confidence despite the early struggles, which were highlighted by his struggles as the closer.

“The entire bullpen other than me was throwing the ball well,” Dyson said. “There wasn’t a collective feeling of not pitching well. It was fingers pointing at me. Everyone in the bullpen has been doing their part to this point in the season.”

Napoli’s 10th homer of the season snapped a 2-2 tie in the fifth, and it traveled 446 feet to straightaway center field. Kozma connected in the sixth for another solo homer, which sailed 377 feet to just clear the left-field wall was only the fourth of his career.

Kozma, a utility infielder who has bounced between the majors and minors the past few seasons, hadn’t hit a home run in the majors since April 2, 2013.

“We needed that run,” manager Jeff Banister said. “He’s really put together some good at-bats against left-handers for us.”

The unexpected homer gave the Rangers’ bullpen a two-run cushion. Claudio breezed to four outs on a mere 10 pitches, and Dyson threw only 22 pitches to record five straight outs after allowing a Miguel Cabrera double with one out in the seventh.

During the inning, Cabrera and Dyson apparently exchanged words. Dyson nearly hit Cabrera with his first two pitches, which sunk low and inside at Cabrera’s ankles, but Dyson said that the issue stemmed from Cabrera possibly tipping hitters on what pitches were coming.

Dyson doesn’t believe that Cabrera was tipping pitches, and claims that all he said to Cabrera was, “You’re too smart.”

“And he said, ‘What did you say?’ ” Dyson said. “I turned around. I might have repeated it once or twice. That’s it. He was telling the dugout what I was throwing, the changeup. I don’t think he was stealing signs or anything of that nature. I wasn’t angry. I was just telling him he’s too smart.”

The Rangers tacked on a run in the ninth, as Jonathan Lucroy followed Rougned Odor’s leadoff single with an RBI double. Working with a three-run advantage, Kela needed 16 pitches in the ninth to collect his second career save.

The bullpen has a 2.14 ERA in the past 15 games.

For Darvish, the outing was his shortest of the season and snapped a streak in which he had thrown at least six innings in five straight starts. Despite the short effort, he boosted his record to 5-2 and saw his ERA climb a hair from 2.76 to 2.83.

But he had to work to get there. Ian Kinsler swatted a leadoff homer in the first, and Darvish needed 23 pitches before he recorded his first out and 34 pitches to get out of the inning with the bases loaded.

The Tigers scored one more in the second, as Cabrera singled in Andrew Romine following a walk to Alex Avila. Detroit, though, had only two hits the final three innings against Darvish (5-2).

“I had a really good bullpen warming up, and going into the game I probably got overexcited,” Darvish said. “I was just trying to overthrow and trying to get the guys out too much.”

Lucroy also drove in the game’s first run with a first-inning RBI single that stretched his hitting streak to nine games. That’s one shy of Nomar Mazara, who tripled in the second and scored as Robinson Chirinos followed with a single.

The Rangers collected 15 hits against Matthew Boyd and four Tigers relievers. Napoli, Lucroy, Kozma, Delino DeShields and Ryan Rua each had two hits, and every hitter had at least one.

“We’re playing together, grinding out at-bats, and when a situation comes up, going out there and executing,” Napoli said. “We’re playing really good baseball. It’s what we envisioned going through spring training and coming into the season.”

This story was originally published May 21, 2017 at 10:55 PM with the headline "Bullpen carries Rangers to victory over Tigers."