Even without Gallo and Choo, Rangers keep winning
The Texas Rangers were without their best slugger in Joey Gallo.
And their leadoff hitter Shin-Soo Choo was sidelined after being hit by a pitch the night before. Their second baseman is still struggling and their right fielder still runs hot and cold.
But they’re still winning more times than not.
Thursday’s 4-3 win over the Baltimore Orioles was just another ho-hum affair in which Hunter Pence homered for the 12th time and Ariel Jurado turned in his third consecutive start of six innings or more. Jurado allowed three runs on eight hits and a walk and struck out six over six innings.
The game was delayed for 13 minutes by a passing rain shower in the top of the fourth.
“That’s not an easy thing for a pitcher to go through,” Rangers manager Chris Woodward said. “I know that’s not long of a break in between but it’s a like a really long inning on offense and you get tight. But he did really well for us.”
Texas has won seven of its past nine and is 5-2 on the current homestand. The win puts the Rangers four games above .500, tying their season-best.
They’ve won a season-best three consecutive series and are 22-10 at home, the fourth time in club history with a record as good to start a season. The others were 1996 (23-9), 1998 (22-10) and 2016 (23-9). All three were playoff years.
The Rangers scored twice in the second on Pence’s homer and Ronald Guzman’s RBI double to take a 2-1 lead. Pence had 16 extra-base hits (including four homers) in 97 games in 2018 with the Giants. He’s played in 46 so far this season.
A leadoff double in the fifth led to a run in the fifth to pull the Orioles even but the Rangers scored two more in the bottom of the inning.
Delino DeShields, back in center since Gallo was placed on the injured list with a left oblique strain four days ago, scored Isiah Kiner-Falefa on a single to right and Danny Santana drove in DeShields with a sacrifice fly to center to build a two-run lead.
The Orioles added a third run in the sixth but the Rangers’ bullpen clamped down as Jesse Chavez and Chris Martin pitched perfect seventh and eighth innings and Shawn Kelley pitched a scoreless ninth to close it out.
“If we all go out there and put up zeroes all the other guys want to follow suit and do the same,” Martin said. “The starters are doing the same thing as the bullpen. I think it’s a really good sign to win the close games.”
The Orioles had the tying run at second base with two outs before Kelley struck out Richie Martin on a pitch that skipped under Jeff Mathis, who had to scramble quickly behind the umpire to recover the ball and zip a throw to first for the final out.
“Those four guys down in the bullpen have really stabilized everything, especially when we have the lead,” Woodward said. “They’ve basically maintained it for the past six weeks.”
This story was originally published June 6, 2019 at 9:49 PM with the headline "Even without Gallo and Choo, Rangers keep winning."
