Rangers recap: Youth rescues Texas in 14th to take 2-0 lead on Blue Jays

Infield reserve Hanser Alberto collected his first hit since Aug. 30 in the 14th inning Friday afternoon. It scored Rougned Odor with the go-ahead run as the Texas Rangers won a heart-stopping 6-4 marathon against the Toronto Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre. The win gives Texas a commanding two games to none lead in the series, which resumes with Game 3 at 7:05 p.m. Sunday at Globe Life Park.

Pitching: Josh Donaldson greeted Cole Hamels with a one-out homer to center in the first to get the crowd of 49,716 screaming in unison. An error on a groundball to Alberto at third put the lead-off man on in Troy Tulowitzki. After a Chris Colabello double to right, Tulowitzki scored on Russell Martin’s single. Colabello scored on a 5-4-3 double play to tie it at 3-3. Hamels retired eight of nine batters between the second and fourth innings. In the fifth, Pillar’s lead-off double set up the go-ahead run for Toronto. Pillar scored on Ben Revere’s single to right. Hamels retired the final eight batters he faced and left after the seventh. He finished with four runs allowed (two earned) on six hits, no walks and six strikeouts.

Dyson pitched the eighth and had to work around a lead-off single, in which he misplayed Revere’s tapper back to the mound after falling down. He got Donaldson to pop out to short and struckout Bautista before intentionally walking Encarnacion. Rougned Odor made a barehanded grab on a slow hopper and fired to first to end the inning and preserve the 4-4 tie. Jake Diekman retired all six batters he faced in the ninth and tenth. Shawn Tolleson retired the side in the 11th, and after a lead-off single in the 12th, retired the next three batters.

Hitting: Texas jumped on Toronto starter Marcus Stroman for two in the first as Delino DeShields, Shin-Soo Choo and Prince Fielder started the game with hits. DeShields doubled and scored on Choo’s single to right. Choo scored on Mitch Moreland’s fielder’s choice to first. Fielder was caught between home and third and was tagged out on an unassisted double play by first baseman Colabello to end the inning. Odor started the second with a four-pitch walk and moved from first to third on Chris Gimenez’s slow bounce out to the mound. He slid under the tag at home on a sac fly by Alberto.

Stroman started the eighth but after DeShields led off with a single, Toronto went to the bullpen. Left-handed reliever Brett Cecil came on to face the run of left-handed hitters due up for the Rangers. Choo bunted DeShields over to second before Fielder struck out. Mike Napoli pinch-hit for Moreland but Toronto stuck with Cecil. Napoli, who bats right, singled through the right side, scoring DeShields to tie it at 4-4.

After Alberto scored Odor in the 14th inning to put Texas ahead 5-4, DeShields followed with an infield single to short in which he just beat the throw to first. That scored Chris Gimenez to make it 6-4. Gimenez followed Odor’s two-out single with a single through the right side.

Notable: Hamilton, who was 0 for 6 Friday, is 0 for his past 30 postseason at-bats. Toronto was 15-28 in one-run games, the worst in the majors this season ... 49,716 was the announced attendance at Rogers Centre Friday ... Diekman retired all six batters he faced. He’s retired all 12 batters he’s faced in the series ... DeShields is the first Ranger to double in each of his first two career postseason games ... Texas played its fifth extra-inning postseason game (three in 2011; one in 1996).

This story was originally published October 9, 2015 at 4:42 PM with the headline "Rangers recap: Youth rescues Texas in 14th to take 2-0 lead on Blue Jays."