Smoak burns Texas Rangers late, but base running sets up defeat

Texas Rangers pitchers played with fire for much of the night Tuesday at the Rogers Centre.

It finally torched them at the hands of Justin Smoak. The Rangers’ 2008 first-round draft pick and current Toronto Blue Jays first baseman tied the game in the ninth with a solo homer and then gave the Blue Jays a 3-1 walk-off win with a two-run homer in the tenth.

The home runs were Smoak’s first two of the season.

Rangers closer Shawn Tolleson entered the game in the ninth with a 1-0 lead and looking for his league-high 10th save. Smoak ripped a 1-2 fastball to center field to tie it. Tolleson, who blew his second save and first since April 6, had to work out of a massive mess to prevent Toronto from winning it in the ninth. Kevin Pillar followed the homer with a double off the wall in left. Tolleson walked two and had the bases loaded with two outs before getting Jose Bautista to fly out to right.

“I got ahead of him, made my pitches, and then I tried to go up and in with the fastball. I just didn’t execute, I missed my spot in the middle of the plate and he put a good swing on it,” Tolleson said. “And then Pillar hit that double and after that I just had to battle.”

Phil Klein came on in the 10th and had one on with one out when Smoak delivered his opposite-field game-winner to left.

“They’re challenging, obviously,” Rangers manager Jeff Banister said of the extra-inning loss. “You get a lead, you want to hold onto the lead. Klein is trying to go down and away and just didn’t execute the pitch where he wanted to and Smoak put another good swing on it.”

Rangers starter Martin Perez did his best Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde performance, looking masterful on one pitch, befuddled on the next. The roller coaster took its toll and Perez was pulled after five innings and 90 pitches.

Catcher Brett Nicholas, who was behind the plate with Perez for the first time, had to repeatedly visit the mound to make sure he was on the same page with Perez. Pitching coach Doug Brocail also made three trips to the mound to help Perez sort out his delivery.

“He didn’t necessarily have his best stuff today command-wise, but you saw what he did as far as competing out there on the mound and that says a lot about the pitcher and who he is,” said Nicholas, who had a ground-rule double in the second inning, one of the Rangers’ six hits. “He kept us in the game and kept them to a zero.”

Perez left leading 1-0 against Blue Jays’ starter Marco Estrada. Estrada held the Rangers to one run on two hits and one walk over six innings.

The Rangers took a 1-0 lead on Rougned Odor’s team-leading fourth homer on the second pitch of the game against Estrada. The Rangers failed, however, to add to the lead in four separate innings. In the second, Delino DeShields tapped back to the mound to end the inning, stranding runners at second and third. In the eighth, Odor and Nomar Mazara singled with one out, but another base running blunder squandered the scoring chance. Odor, thinking he could tag from second on Adrian Beltre’s shallow fly-out to second baseman Darwin Barney, was thrown out easily at third to end the inning.

“I thought I could make it to third base but he made a good play,” Odor said. “[Estrada] was throwing a lot of changeups down and away. He threw a good game.”

In the ninth, Prince Fielder led off with a double and was replaced by pinch runner Hanser Alberto. He moved to third on Ian Desmond’s single to right with no outs but was thrown out trying to score on Mitch Moreland’s grounder to second. Elvis Andrus and Nicholas were retired, stranding two runners to end the inning and set up Smoak’s heroics.

“The base running decision was not a good decision on our part, but that didn’t lose the ball game for us,” Banister said. “We didn’t capitalize on some opportunities we had to put a couple runs across the board.”

This story was originally published May 3, 2016 at 11:05 PM with the headline "Smoak burns Texas Rangers late, but base running sets up defeat."