Rangers recap: Yovani Gallardo shuts down Blue Jays, six-game slide

Yovani Gallardo remained on fire as he held the Toronto Blue Jays to three hits over eight-plus innings to help the Texas Rangers end a six-game losing streak with a 4-0 win Saturday at Rogers Centre.

Pitching: Gallardo walked a batter in the first and allowed a two-out single in the fourth before retiring 10 consecutive batters. He walked the lead-off hitter in the eighth before inducing a 6-4-3 double play. The next batter, Kevin Pillar, singled but Gallardo forced Devon Travis to ground out to end the inning. Gallardo (7-6) struck out four, allowed two hits and walked two in eight innings. He hasn’t allowed an earned run in his last 23 innings, a career-high. He’s allowed just five earned runs in his last 45 innings, dating to May 24. Gallardo was two outs shy of throwing his first complete game since April 2011. Shawn Tolleson entered with one out and one on in the ninth and induced a 6-4-3 game-ending double play.

Hitting: Elvis Andrus led off the second with a bunt single, moved to third on Joey Gallo’s single to right and scored on Rougned Odor’s sacrifice fly to left to give Texas a 1-0 lead. The Rangers tacked on runs with solo homers to lead off innings by Mitch Moreland (4th), Robinson Chirinos (5th) and Odor (7th). Fielder, Beltre and Odor each had two hits.

Notable: Prince Fielder singles in his first two at-bats for his major league-leading 32nd multi-hit game ... Joey Gallo started in center field for the first time in his career. He moved to left field in the sixth inning when Leonys Martin entered the game for Ryan Rua ... Gallo had one play defensively, moving to his left to make the catch on a shallow fly ball in the right-center gap ... Martin, who entered the game in bottom of the sixth, snapped an 0 for 15 skid with an infield single up the middle in the seventh ... Gallardo lowered his ERA to 2.72. It was 4.26 on May 19.

This story was originally published June 27, 2015 at 2:33 PM with the headline "Rangers recap: Yovani Gallardo shuts down Blue Jays, six-game slide."