Astros complete sweep in a lost weekend for Rangers

By the time the rain came for good Sunday, at the start of the bottom of the ninth inning, it was way too late to bail out the Texas Rangers.

They couldn’t even get the weather right in a lost, soggy weekend at Globe Life Park.

The third game against the Houston Astros ultimately wasn’t any different than the first two. The Rangers lost, this time 7-2, in a flurry of not-good-enough starting pitching against a terrific hitting team and too many empty swings against a solid pitching team.

The loss left the Rangers in fourth place in the five-team American League West and 15 games behind the first-place Astros. A good weekend would have left the Rangers as few as nine games back.

It wasn’t a good weekend.

“I don’t think really anything went wrong. Houston just played better than us for three games,” outfielder Shin-Soo Choo said. “Offense, pitching. They just played better than us.”

The Astros scored 20 runs in the series, 13 against the Rangers’ three starting pitchers. Yu Darvish, Andrew Cashner and Martin Perez posted a 7.98 ERA, but only Perez didn’t give the Rangers a real chance to win.

He allowed runs in all four innings, and was done after six runs (five earned) on seven hits. Three of those hits were home runs. Two of those were by George Springer, including a shot to left field to open the game.

“I just got behind the count every time,” said Perez, whose record slipped to 2-6. “Sometimes I threw my pitches in and they hit it good. They are a good team now. Sometimes we have to give credit to a team that we face.”

No one was taking anything away from the Astros, whose pitchers registered 41 strikeouts in the series. The Rangers fanned 13 times Sunday against Brad Peacock and three relievers as the Astros won their 10th consecutive game.

The Rangers, meanwhile, have lost 10 of 12 and five of six on this eight-game homestand that continues Tuesday against the New York Mets. Cleburne native Dillon Gee will make his first Rangers start against the team that drafted and developed him.

Maybe he and the off day will give the Rangers a jolt. They could use one.

The Rangers trailed 6-0 before they collected their first hit, a single by Nomar Mazara with one out in the fourth inning. It was 7-0 before the Rangers tallied their first run on a solo homer by the struggling Rougned Odor.

He batted seventh for the first time this season after occupying spots 3-5 in the lineup. He declined comment after the game.

Joey Gallo drove in the Rangers’ other run with a two-out single in the sixth to score Elvis Andrus, who has a 10-game hitting streak. Adrian Beltre has a hit in all six of his games this season, and is now 49 shy of 3,000.

Nick Martinez provided 3  2/3 scoreless innings of relief, and that was it for the Rangers’ highlights.

The Astros had no shortage, beginning with Springer’s leadoff blast and two more solo homers by Carlos Correa and Yuli Gurriel. Correa also took a hit away from Nomar Mazara with a leaping catch on a soft liner to left field.

“I think they’re playing very well,” manager Jeff Banister said. “I think they’re swinging the bat well. They came in swinging the bats very well. There were some moments where we weren’t able to stop that, and obviously the four home runs today were very challenging for us. But they’re playing good baseball.”

The Rangers?

“We don’t get good results right now,” Perez said. “We’ve got a good team. The only thing we have to do is trust in what we do and go out there and compete.”

This story was originally published June 4, 2017 at 7:24 PM with the headline "Astros complete sweep in a lost weekend for Rangers."