ARLINGTON, Texas — Jonathan Aranda said he took it personally when the Texas Rangers intentionally walked Yandy Díaz to get to him in the 10th inning Saturday night. On a 1-2 count, he hit a slider from Jacob Latz a Statcast-projected 409 feet to right-center field for a three-run home run, and the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Rangers 6-3 at Globe Life Field.
Richie Palacios told Adam Berry of MLB.com that some hitters take an intentional walk ahead of them as motivation and some take it as part of the game.
“To be honest, when they put Yandy on and they intentionally walked him, I took it personally,” Aranda said through interpreter Kevin Vera, according to Berry.
Rays manager Kevin Cash said Aranda got to two strikes against a tough left-on-left matchup and went down to get the pitch.
“A tough matchup right there, but Jonny hung in there in a big way,” Cash told Berry. “[He] got to two strikes and it looked like he went down and got a [slider]. Huge home run.”
The 10th Inning At Globe Life Field
Jorge Mateo started the inning at second base as the automatic runner. Taylor Walls bunted him to third. Latz, working his second inning, walked Díaz on four pitches to set up Aranda.
It was Latz’s first loss since April 10. Texas had gone 40-3 in his 43 appearances in between, according to Kennedi Landry of MLB.com.
Tyler Wells (4-2) had pitched a scoreless ninth, and Cash sent him back out for the 10th after the homer. Since the Rays acquired him from Baltimore at the trade deadline, Wells has a 1.69 ERA with 16 strikeouts in 16 innings over 12 appearances.
“He’s been huge for us and today we probably pushed him a little farther than we normally would, but we knew that this was a big opportunity, a big chance for us to win a game,” Cash said. “I felt confident with him out there. The way he commands the baseball is pretty special.”
What Jonathan Aranda Has Done In This Series
On Friday, Aranda homered in the third inning of a 7-6 Rays win. In the fifth, he doubled to the opposite field between Díaz and Junior Caminero, who did the same, and Tampa Bay turned a 2-1 lead into 4-1. He finished the night with 2 RBIs and 2 runs scored.
Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said Saturday that Texas circled Caminero and Aranda before the series as the two hitters it could not let beat it.
“Caminero and Aranda have done some damage against us, and we’ve got to just make sure that they’re not beating us,” Schumaker said. “Beginning of the series we kind of circled them for them not to beat us, and they beat us. So we’ve got to take a look at exactly what we’re doing wrong because they’ve been slugging and doing damage in the wrong time of the game.”
Aranda was an All-Star in 2025 and hit .316 with 14 home runs in 106 games. He missed two months after fracturing his left wrist in a collision at first base with Giancarlo Stanton on July 31 of that year, returned Sept. 26, and homered in each of his first two games back.
Where The Tampa Bay Rays Stand
Tampa Bay is 85-57, the best record in the American League. The Rays lead the New York Yankees by four games in the AL East after New York won 5-1 at San Diego on Saturday.
The Rays had lost 10 straight games in Arlington before Friday. They have now won two in a row here after Texas shut them out 6-0 in Thursday’s opener.
Left-hander Ian Seymour (9-6, 4.21 ERA) starts Sunday’s finale for Tampa Bay against Rangers left-hander MacKenzie Gore (8-10, 4.31). First pitch is 2:35 p.m. CT.
