Rangers recap: Hamels battles rocky start for win as bullpen shuts down Tigers

Rangers’ ace Cole Hamels didn’t have his best stuff Tuesday night at Globe Life Park. In fact, for the first three innings he wasn’t fooling Detroit Tigers’ lineup at all. But he settled down to go six innings before turning it over to the Texas bullpen, which closed out a 7-6 win.

Pitching: The Tigers scored twice with two outs in each of the first three innings against Cole Hamels. J.D. Martinez’s two-run homer in the first was followed by a two-run second, including a solo homer by Bryan Holaday. After two strikeouts to start the third, Hamels walked J.D. Martinez, hit Andrew Romine and allowed a run-scoring single to Jefry Marte. Dixon Machado followed with a run-scoring double to the right-field corner. Hamels settled down and retired nine in a row before Holaday doubled with two outs in the sixth. Hamels left after six innings and leading 7-6. He allowed six runs on seven hits, two walks and a hit batter. He struck out eight. Sam Dyson started the seventh and retired the side in order. Keone Kela retired the side in the eighth. Shawn Tolleson pitched a scoreless ninth to earn his 34th save.

Hitting: Texas erupted for five runs in the first against left-hander Daniel Norris, who threw 54 pitches. The first five hitters reached, including on two errors. Shin-Soo Choo’s two-run homer tied it at 2-2. Adrian Beltre scored from third on Mike Napoli’s pop up that was dropped by Jefry Marte at first. Prince Fielder scored on Elvis Andrus’ sacrifice fly and Napoli scored on Rougned Odor’s stand-up triple to the right-center gap to make it 5-2.

Norris left after 71 pitches with two outs in the second inning. Delino DeShields led off the second with a double and scored on Beltre’s single off the glove of Marte, who had been moved from first to third for the second inning. That gave Texas a 6-4 lead headed into the third.

Choo doubled with two outs in the fourth and scored on Beltre’s double to the right-fielder corner that J.D. Martinez failed to catch to give Texas a 7-6 lead. With the bases loaded in the seventh, Odor and pinch-hitter Josh Hamilton both struck out to leave them stranded.

Notable: Odor tripled for the ninth time ... he trails only Delino DeShields who leads the team with 10 ... Tigers’ third baseman Nick Castellanos left Tuesday’s game in the second inning with a right index finger contusion.

This story was originally published September 29, 2015 at 10:24 PM with the headline "Rangers recap: Hamels battles rocky start for win as bullpen shuts down Tigers."