Joey Gallo’s upper-deck blast goes for naught as Texas Rangers’ skid reaches five
Joey Gallo snapped a 14-game streak without a home run by a towering blast into the third-deck at T Mobile Field, but the Seattle Mariners clubbed two home runs off Jordan Lyles in a 4-3 victory that pushed the Rangers’ losing streak to five.
Leody Taveras and Ronald Guzman also hit a solo home runs for the Rangers, who hit multiple homers in back-to-back games for only the second time this season. They entered the day with the the lowest batting average in baseball and the fewest homers, runs and hits in the American League.
Gallo connected on a 433-foot homer to start the second inning and became only the fifth player to reach the upper deck at T Mobile. He hadn’t homered since Aug. 19 at San Diego.
“I know he’s been working really hard,” manager Chris Woodward said. “Some of it’s mechanics, some of it is mentality, but he felt better about it going into today.”
The Rangers haven’t won since Tuesday at Houston. Kyle Seager hit a two-run homer in the first and Kyle Lewis launched a solo homer in the fourth. Seager has 30 career homers against the Rangers.
Lyles, though, pitched better for a second straight outing than he had much of the season.
The right-hander pitched into the seventh inning for the first time this season and at one point retired 10 in a row. He allowed all four runs, though one came in after he was removed with one out in the seventh.
The Rangers did not use an opener in front of Lyles, as they did Tuesday.
“He was good today,” Woodward said. “He used all his pitches and used his breaking pitches when he needed to. It seemed like he had a little more in the tank at the end. Overall, it was encouraging.”
Taveras nearly drove in another in the seventh with a two-out double to center, but Derek Dietrich was thrown out at home.
Gallo batted as the potential tying run with two outs in the eighth, but grounded sharply to first base. Guzman connected with one out in the ninth, allowing the potential tying run to bat twice.
Dietrich, though, was called out on a pitch wide of the plate and Anderson Tejeda struck out for the third time in the game.
This story was originally published September 6, 2020 at 5:59 PM.
