The Twins finished their frightful first half with a decidedly optimistic flourish on Sunday, pasting the first-place Rangers with their highest-scoring inning of the season and running away with their seventh victory in 10 games, 15-5 at Globe Life Park.
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The Texas Rangers, in dire need of effective starting pitching, will turn to veteran Kyle Lohse in Saturday’s game against Minnesota.
The Texas Rangers observed a moment of silence before their game Friday night to honor five police officers killed in a sniper attack in downtown Dallas, which is about 20 miles from their ballpark.
The win was the fifth in seven meetings for the Twins against Texas, which has now dropped seven of its last nine games.
“When you walk the amount of guys that I walked today, it’s nothing that I take very lightly, it’s something that’s very frustrating”, said Hamels, who was trailing when he left the game but had a no-decision. Milone allowed two runs on five hits in five innings to pick up his second consecutive win.
In the 5th inning, the big blow came from Max Kepler who hit a grand slam off of AJ Griffin.
“We’re just having fun. Picking each other up”, Kepler said. He will get an MRI on Saturday.
Tommy Milone (2-2) struck out three and walked three. The left-hander was out of the game after walking Adrian Beltre to start the sixth, and Ryan Rua promptly grounded into a double play against reliever Taylor Rogers.
The Twins have the AL’s worst record at 30-56. Minnesota has reached double-digits in scoring five times this season, all of them since June 21.
“There are points in the season where they don’t look so well, they don’t feel so well”, Texas manager Jeff Banister said. “We get a four-day rainout”.
Every Minnesota starter had at least one hit and eight had at least one RBI as the Twins pounded out a season high 18 hits. The safe call was overturned for the second out, and Suzuki then had what was an inning-ending flyball instead of a likely sac fly to leave Robbie Grossman stranded at third base. 6-8 batters, each had three hits, and No. 9 batter Escobar had two hits.
“It felt good to be back”, Lohse said. Still, there’s plenty of baseball left to be played after the break. But obviously we’ve got to be better in that category. Banister asked for a replay review, which showed Rosario’s foot just briefly lost contact with the bag while 2B Rougned Odor was still applying a tag. Odor had two errors in the eighth. “We kind of beat ourselves the second half of the game”. “Really glad we got this win”.
Rangers: Darvish (shoulder soreness) is scheduled to throw 75 pitches in a rehab assignment Sunday for Double-A Frisco.
The Texas Rangers still have the best record in the American League and are the only defending division champion in the majors going into the All-Star break on top this season.
Twins: Minnesota opens a three-game series Friday at home against AL Central-leading Cleveland.
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Rangers: After the All-Star break, the Rangers open a 10-day, nine-game road trip Friday with an interleague series at the Chicago Cubs.
