Rangers recap: Cole Hamels stellar again as top of Texas lineup rips Mariners

Cole Hamels threw his fourth consecutive quality start at Globe Life Park and the Rangers won the seventh straight game he’s started as Texas evened its series with the Seattle Mariners 10-1 Saturday night. The Rangers kept their 2 1/2 game lead in the American League West on the Houston Astros, who also won Saturday. The Rangers’ magic number to clinch the division title is 12. The magic number is any combination of Rangers’ wins and Astros’ losses.

Pitching: Hamels allowed a solo homer to Franklin Gutierrez to start the second but held the Mariners scoreless the next five innings. He left after the seventh with 12 strikeouts, the most by a Rangers pitcher this season. He allowed seven hits, walked none and improved to 4-1 with Texas. Sam Dyson pitched a perfect eighth and Chi Chi Gonzalez closed it out in the ninth.

Hitting: Texas took a 1-0 lead in the first on singles by Shin-Soo Choo, Adrian Beltre and Mike Napoli. They added two more in the second as Elvis Andrus led off with a walk and scored on Chris Gimenez’ groundout. Delino DeShields’ sacrifice fly to center scored Rougned Odor, who had reached on an infield single and moved to second on a throwing error to first by the pitcher. Two more runs in the fourth put Texas up 5-1. Beltre’s two-run double scored Gimenez and DeShields. Andrus and Gimenez doubled and DeShields tripled as part of a three-run fifth. Beltre also had a run-scoring single. Texas added two more runs in the eighth to make it 10-1.

Notable: DeShields’ 10 triples is the second-most by a Rangers player in a season ... Hamels has gone at least seven innings in his past five starts ... In nine starts for the Rangers, Hamels has failed to go at least seven innings twice — six innings at Seattle Aug. 7 and six innings at Detroit Aug. 23 ... Hamels had his ninth-career game with 12 or more strikeouts. That’s the most for a Rangers’ pitcher since Yu Darvish July 18, 2014 at Toronto ... Beltre had reached base 10 consecutive plate appearances before grounding into a fielder’s choice in the seventh.

This story was originally published September 19, 2015 at 10:18 PM with the headline "Rangers recap: Cole Hamels stellar again as top of Texas lineup rips Mariners."