Rangers falter after another comeback as bullpen craters again

The Rangers were one out from being back at .500 but the beleaguered bullpen faltered again. The Rays hit a game-tying homer in the ninth and two homers in the 10th for a 7-5 win Wednesday night at Globe Life Park.

How Rangers pitchers fared: Austin Bibens-Dirkx held the Rays to three runs and left trailing 3-2 after 4 2/3 innings. Bibens-Dirkx allowd five hits and three walks and struck out two in his first major league start. Jeremy Jeffress took over in the fifth and got a groundout to end the inning. Jefffress pitched a scoreless sixth before Alex Claudio pitched two scoreless innings to get the game to closer Matt Bush. Bush had two outs in the ninth before Kevin Kiermaier’s homer tied it at 4-4. In the 10th, Sam Dyson allowed a lead-off, go-ahead homer to Logan Morrison before a fielding error by third baseman Pete Kozma put a man on to set up Derek Norris’ two-run homer to give the Rays a 7-4 lead.

How Rangers hitters fared: Adrian Beltre drove in Andrus with a sacrifice fly in the first inning to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead against Rays’ start Chris Archer. It’s Beltre’s first RBI of 2017. Beltre led off the fourth with a double and moved to third on Rougned Odor’s single to right. Beltre scored on Jonathan Lucroy’s 4-6-3 double play to pull the Rangers to within 3-2. In the fifth, Mike Napoli reached on a swinging strikeout wild pitch and moved to third on Shin-Soo Choo’s single to right. Napoli scored to tie it at 3-3 when Andrus beat out a potentially inning-ending 6-4-3 double play at first base. The Rangers took a 4-3 lead with a run in the seventh. Napoli doubles on a fly ball that bounced out of center fielder Kevin Kiermaier’s glove at the wall. Pete Kozma pinch-ran for Napoli and was later thrown out at home trying to score on Choo’s grounder to short. Choo scored from first on Andrus’ double to left to put the Rangers up 4-3. The Rangers added a run in the bottom of the 10th on Beltre’s RBI single to shallow left but Odor groundout with the tying runs on base to end the game.

Notables: Beltre’s double in the fourth was the 1,593rd of his career, moving him into sole possession of 18th place all-time.

This story was originally published May 31, 2017 at 11:01 PM with the headline "Rangers falter after another comeback as bullpen craters again."