ARLINGTON, Texas — Cal Quantrill left the Texas Rangers’ game against the Toronto Blue Jays with right lat tightness after getting one out in the second inning Saturday night. Five relievers covered the final 7 2/3 innings, and Texas won 6-2 at Globe Life Field.
With the win, the Rangers (78-77) moved into sole possession of first place in the American League West for the first time since late August. Texas is one game ahead of the Houston Astros (77-78) with seven games left after Houston lost to the Atlanta Braves again Saturday. The Astros won the season series 9-4 and hold the tiebreaker.
The Rangers have won six of their last seven games. Saturday also put Texas above .500 for the first time since Aug. 10, when it was 60-59.
Toronto (76-79), the reigning American League champion, has lost eight of its last 12 games. The Blue Jays trail the Chicago White Sox by three games for the final AL wild card, according to the AP.
Quantrill retired the leadoff batter in the second on a groundout. Rangers manager Skip Schumaker, pitching coach Jordan Tiegs, and head athletic trainer Matt Lucero then came to the mound, and Quantrill left after facing 4 batters and throwing 12 pitches. His last pitch was a four-seam fastball at 87.8 mph, Kennedi Landry of MLB.com reported. He has averaged 93.8 mph on the pitch this season.
In his previous start Sept. 13 at Arizona, Quantrill’s back tightened after the fifth inning. He finished 6 innings that night and allowed 5 hits and 2 earned runs, with 0 walks and 4 strikeouts on 70 pitches. Quantrill, 31, entered Saturday 9-5 with 81 strikeouts over 31 appearances, 14 of them starts.
“No real update other than he’s going to get an MRI tomorrow,” Schumaker said after the game. “So I’m not sure the extent of the injury. It’s kind of in the lat area. So kind of see what happens tomorrow.”
Left-hander Jordan Montgomery took over two days after throwing 16 pitches out of the bullpen against the Boston Red Sox. He threw 3 2/3 hitless innings on 51 pitches, with 1 walk and 1 strikeout, and left with a 3-0 lead after the fifth. Toronto’s first baserunner came on a walk in the fourth.
Montgomery (1-0) earned his first major league win since Aug. 14, 2024, when he pitched for the Arizona Diamondbacks. He came off the 60-day injured list Aug. 7 after Tommy John surgery and has pitched out of the bullpen since.
Wyatt Langford Scores Twice Against José Soriano And Toronto Blue Jays
In the first inning, Josh Jung gave Texas a 1-0 lead with a solo home run to right field off José Soriano. The Rangers added two more runs in the second without a hit.
Soriano walked Wyatt Langford to open the inning. One out later, he hit Nicky Lopez on the right foot with a pitch. Danny Jansen followed with a grounder, and Langford scored when shortstop Andrés Giménez could not handle the throw to second base. Lopez took third on the error and scored on a wild pitch for a 3-0 lead.
After Toronto cut it to 3-1 in the top of the sixth, Soriano came back out for the bottom half. Jung was hit by a pitch, and Brandon Nimmo singled. Langford doubled off the left-field wall to score Jung for a 4-1 lead, and that ended Soriano’s night.
Paul Sewald replaced him and struck out the first batter he faced. Sewald then intentionally walked Lopez to load the bases and hit Jansen with a pitch, forcing in Nimmo. Evan Carter followed with a sacrifice fly, and Langford hurdled his way home for a 6-1 lead.
Rangers third base coach Corey Ragsdale sent Langford home on Carter’s fly ball. The play at the plate was close, Langford said on Rangers Sports Network after the game.
“Nothing,” Langford said. “I mean, I was just watching, trying to score. He told me to go. I knew it was going to be close. I just put my head down and ran. And he ended up being kind of in the baseline. [It] just kind of all happened. I didn’t really plan on doing all that.”
Soriano (12-8) pitched 5 innings and allowed 4 hits, 5 earned runs, 1 walk, and 8 strikeouts. Six runs scored against him in all, and his ERA rose to 3.72.
Toronto’s intentional walk to Lopez in the sixth loaded the bases for Jansen. The Rangers have won lately by bunting, by stealing, and with big hits, Langford said.
“It’s awesome,” Langford explained. “We’ve won in a bunch of different ways lately. Whether it’s bunting, stealing, big hits, just part of it, part of the game. That happens and then Danny obviously gets hit in the next pitch. So it all worked out. But that’s what happens. You just play hard and see what happens.”
Before the game, Schumaker said Soriano still throws 97 mph with a runner and a sinker. The Rangers’ plan against him was to avoid double-play balls, he said.
“I’m trying to remember that play,” Schumaker explained. “Yeah, Nicky Lopez, another good day, another good game with obviously really good defense and incredible play. Him and Jake Burger have been outstanding on the defensive side this series. [I] mean, picking each other up was just fantastic.”
“That’s a baseball play,” Schumaker continued. “The intentional walk, it’s a baseball play. And they wanted to probably try to get a double play with Jansen. I’m not sure that, I’m not on their side, but that’s most likely. I probably would have done the same thing, quite honestly. And it just so happened that Jansen got hit by the pitch.”
Skip Schumaker Credits Trevor Williams For Jordan Montgomery’s Long Relief
On Friday, Trevor Williams threw the final 4 innings of a 7-1 win over Toronto without allowing a run. Williams signed with Texas on Sept. 1 and had not pitched since Sept. 9 before that outing.
“Initially, that happened because of Trevor Williams,” Schumaker said. “Trevor Williams going back out in the ninth inning last night to just cover us allowed Monty to be able to throw three or four innings. So that game, that outing right there was because of Trevor Williams. And we wouldn’t have been able to do that because Monty was pitching that ninth inning if Trevor couldn’t give us another inning. He was out of gas, and he said, ‘I can give you guys one more if you need it.’”
“So that’s what this team is all about right now,” Schumaker continued. “And Monty coming in and providing what he did to get us through the fifth inning, again, our bullpen has been really, really good lately. It has covered so many innings and some really unsung heroes right now that are providing so much length to cover us, not only that game to help us win, but the next day.”
“And then we started matching up best we could against a really good team,” Schumaker added. “And they only gave up, what, two runs total, one run after Monty came out of the game, I think, something like that. So a lot happened, sorry, in the pitching side. But, yeah, Monty, fantastic. But, again, these are team wins, and there’s also because of what happened the day before really covering us today.”
Nathan Eovaldi followed Montgomery in the sixth, three days after throwing 46 pitches over 4 scoreless innings against Boston. He hit Giménez with a curveball to open the inning. Giménez moved to second on a one-out single, Toronto’s first hit of the night, and scored on Alejandro Kirk’s two-out single to center.
In the seventh, Davis Schneider hit a pinch-hit solo home run off Robert Garcia to make it 6-2. Chase Silseth and Jacob Latz each pitched a scoreless inning to finish it. Toronto finished with 6 hits, none of them against Montgomery.
The five relievers allowed 2 runs between them. Before the injury, the Rangers were expecting six or seven innings from Quantrill, Langford said.
“A lot,” Langford said. “It’s really tough. Obviously, Cal’s been one of our better pitchers all year. So we’re all expecting him to go six or seven innings, pitch one, two runs, and then that happens. And then Monty’s huge to be able to come out. I think he put up zero runs. So they’re super awesome. They’ve been great all year and really carrying it lately.”
Jacob deGrom (11-9, 3.79 ERA) starts Sunday’s series finale at 1:35 p.m. CT on Rangers Sports Network. He is 8-2 at home this season, according to the AP. Toronto is going with a bullpen day built around right-hander Spencer Arrighetti.
Texas is off Monday before hosting the New York Mets from Sept. 22 to 24. The Rangers close the regular season with three games at the Minnesota Twins from Sept. 25 to 27. Houston finishes its series against Atlanta on Sunday, then plays two games at the Seattle Mariners and four at the Athletics.
