ARLINGTON, Texas — Nathan Eovaldi came out of the bullpen with the game tied 3-3 in the sixth inning Wednesday night and held the Boston Red Sox to 1 hit the rest of the way. The Texas Rangers scored 3 runs in the seventh and beat Boston 7-3 at Globe Life Field.
Texas (76-76) has won 4 straight and is at .500 for the first time since it was 66-66 on Aug. 24. The Houston Astros lost 5-2 at home to the Kansas City Royals, so the Rangers and Astros are tied for first place in the American League West. Houston holds the tiebreaker.
With 10 games left, Texas is one game out of the third and final American League wild card. The Rangers have also won the first two games of the three-game series. Boston fell to 82-70 and holds the second wild card, five games ahead of the Chicago White Sox.
Eovaldi (11-9) worked 4 scoreless innings for the win in his second relief appearance since the Rangers activated him off the 15-day injured list Sept. 12. He had not pitched in a game since Aug. 7 because of right posterior elbow inflammation.
As Eovaldi came in from the bullpen for the sixth, Globe Life Field played Gary Clark Jr.’s cover of The Beatles’ “Come Together,” his usual warm-up song, MLB.com reported. The announced crowd was 26,364.
Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said he did not have closer Jacob Latz or Robert Garcia available Wednesday.
“He had around 60 or so pitches to work with,” Schumaker said. “And once we got into the game where it was we need four innings or it got tied up, just felt like he was the guy to take us to the end. We didn’t have Latz available. We didn’t have Garcia available today. Junis, I know he had the balk and dropped the ball, but that was a huge inning to minimize the damage.”
“We come back, we get a run scored,” Schumaker continued. “And then Evo was easily an easy decision to come out there and provide some length and to hopefully keep us there so we could score some runs and have to make a decision at the end if you ran out of pitches. But he was so good.”
“I heard the crowd when he came in, coming from the bullpen,” Schumaker added. “That was pretty exciting. I think it all gave us a boost of energy as well in a big series. And what he provided was enormous just because we were a little bit limited in the back end.”
Latz got the final 5 outs Tuesday night for his 30th save in 33 chances. Garcia recorded one out in the eighth inning of the same game.
Eovaldi told Rangers Sports Network after the game that keeping his pitch count down was part of the plan.
“With the tie ball game, I was just trying to go in there and try to get as [many] fast outs as possible,” Eovaldi said. “Try to keep the pitch count down and make sure to try to get as many innings as I could.”
In his first game back Sept. 12 at Chase Field, Eovaldi threw 45 pitches over 2 2/3 innings against the Arizona Diamondbacks and allowed 1 earned run. Before the injury, he was 10-9 with a 4.21 ERA and 137 strikeouts over 22 starts. The 36-year-old is in the second season of a three-year, $75 million contract.
MacKenzie Gore Exits in Fifth Inning With Muscle Spasms
MacKenzie Gore made his 32nd start, which is tied for the most in the majors. In the first inning, Willson Contreras hit a two-run homer off him to put Boston up 2-0. It was Contreras’ team-high 27th.
Gore grabbed at his back after a 2-1 pitch to Caleb Durbin in the second, MLB.com reported. Schumaker, pitching coach Jordan Tiegs, and head trainer Matt Lucero met him on the mound, and Gore stayed in. His velocity stayed down after the visit, and he threw 36 of his 69 pitches for strikes.
Gore was charged with 3 runs on 2 hits in 4-plus innings. He walked 3 and did not record a strikeout.
Schumaker said the problem was similar to what Gore dealt with in Colorado a few months ago, when the Rangers pulled him from a start.
“He had muscle spasms that were going on kind of in the back and his shoulder area,” Schumaker explained. “Not the actual shoulder, but underneath the shoulder. And a little bit similar to what he had in Colorado a few months ago when we pulled him. It calmed down after the second inning, and he didn’t feel anything in the third inning. Kind of came back a little bit in the fourth.”
“And then his overall line, I know what he gave, four runs or four innings and two runs, but he only gave up a couple of hits,” Schumaker detailed. “The walks were, it was affecting his control a little bit, what he was talking about. And so once I heard that, then that’s kind of when we were getting Junis going and made the move.”
Texas got a run back in the bottom of the first. Justin Foscue doubled on the first pitch from Red Sox rookie left-hander Jake Bennett, and Jake Burger drove him in with a ground-rule double.
In the fourth, Foscue singled home Wyatt Langford to tie it at 2.
Jakob Junis took over for Gore in the fifth. With Durbin on third base, Junis dropped the ball while on the rubber. The balk sent Durbin home, and Boston led 3-2.
Josh Jung led off the bottom of the fifth with a double. Two outs later, Langford singled him home off reliever Greg Weissert to make it 3-3.
Bennett allowed 3 runs on 8 hits over 4 2/3 innings. He walked 1 and struck out 7.
Brandon Nimmo, Ezequiel Durán Break Tie in Seventh Inning
Left-hander Erik Miller (4-1), the third of four Boston pitchers, came on in the seventh. Brandon Nimmo doubled to score Corey Seager for a 4-3 lead, the first Texas lead of the night.
Ezequiel Durán followed with a two-run single that scored Burger and Nimmo. All 3 runs were charged to Miller. In the eighth, Seager added an RBI single for the final margin.
Schumaker said there was some frustration early, when Texas had runners on base and did not drive them in.
“We had a lot of big hits today,” Schumaker said. “But I thought after, when Miller came in the game, Nimmo had a giant hit the other way against, Miller’s a really tough lefty, 95 with really good secondary. And then obviously [Durán] coming through with two more RBIs, kind of give us a little, a little bit of cushion for Evo, was maybe the, the hit of the game, but I thought Nimmo’s at-bat was just fantastic.”
“Justin Foscue has been so good at the top of the lineup as well, and then obviously Seager at the end,” Schumaker noted. “But up and down the lineup, I could go through each guy that had productive outs, even when they made the outs, and then they had productive at-bats with guys in scoring position. There was some frustration a little bit early on when we had guys on base and didn’t knock them in, but they capitalized towards the end of the game.”
Texas finished with 13 hits. Jung had 3 of them, and Burger and Foscue had 2 apiece. Boston managed 3 hits all night.
Eovaldi said the bottom of the Texas order has been producing and getting on base.
“I think that’s big,” Eovaldi explained. “Obviously, guys are grinding right now, but for us to be able to come out and play well these first two games against the Red Sox, we’ve got to make sure that we bounce back tomorrow. But I think it just shows the grit that we have in the clubhouse and all the guys. We’ve been having a lot of production at the bottom part of the lineup and being able to get on base, and we were able to hang around long enough to take the lead.”
For Eovaldi, the division race comes down to everybody doing their part.
“We just got to keep playing baseball,” Eovaldi said. “Keep playing the games that we’ve been doing right now. We’ve been playing well lately, and I think it’s a combination of everybody really stepping up and doing their part.”
Left-hander Tyler Alexander is the Rangers’ scheduled starter for Thursday’s series finale against Boston right-hander Sonny Gray, the club announced. First pitch is 7:05 p.m. CT on Rangers Sports Network.
The Toronto Blue Jays visit Globe Life Field from Sept. 18 to 20.
