Rangers swept by Angels as lead is cut to 3.5

The Rangers failed to get another strong start from their rotation as the Angels completed a three-game sweep with a 7-4 win Wednesday night Angels Stadium.

Texas has lost 12 of its past 15 games and is 1-5 since the All-Star break. It’s the first time the Rangers have been swept since May 18 at Oakland. They open a three-game series against the Royals Friday in Kansas City.

“We have to get this thing going back in the right direction,” Manager Jeff Banister said. “We need to come out and play some good baseball. They’re not going to quit. They always continue to play.”

Pitching: The Angels jumped on Martin Perez for four runs in the first, including a three-run homer by Jefry Marte. They added single runs in the next three innings and lead 7-3 after four. Perez held the Angels scoreless in the fifth and sixth innings and started the seventh but left after a lead-off single. Matt Bush replaced Perez and struck out Albert Pujols and Ji-Man Choi before getting Andrelton Simmons to foul out. Sam Dyson pitched a scoreless eighth.

Perez was charged with seven runs on 10 hits and three walks and lost his third consecutive start.

“Five of the first seven hitters he was behind [in the count],” Banister said. “It’s been a challenge for Martin. It seems like there’s one inning in this stretch of starts that gets away from him. It happened to be in the first tonight.”

Hitting: Texas got on the board with two runs in the third. Ian Desmond led off with a single and scored on Adrian Beltre’s triple off the left-field wall, which got away from left-fielder Todd Cunningham. Beltre scored on Ryan Rua’s sacrifice fly to right to pull the Rangers to within 5-2. Mitch Moreland homered in the fourth to make it 6-3. Desmond homered with two outs in the ninth to make it 7-4. Beltre doubles and Rua reached on an infield single but Rougned Odor flied out to left to end the game.

Notable: Beltre tripled for the first time since August 25 ... Desmond collected his 39th multi-hit game ... Moreland had his 12th multi-hit game.

This story was originally published July 21, 2016 at 12:01 AM with the headline "Rangers swept by Angels as lead is cut to 3.5."