Texas improved to 30-8 in one-run games with its sixth walk-off victory. “It leaked back over the middle”. Perhaps, what keeps us waking up every day as people, and continuing to cheer for our team as fans, is looking forward toward what could be a brighter future.
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“I started walking toward the dugout”.
Odor’s Tuesday adventure started in the bottom of the third inning.
“It’s frustrating”, he admitted.
Sometimes baseball games feel like they are more than just one out of 162.
There was mention of a fake nail to try and cement the torn nail into place. “I made a couple of mistakes”.
Odor had a two-run home run in the seventh and followed with a three-run shot – his 27th of the season – in the eighth of a game already out of reach.
Then they asked Diaz (0-3) to carry them home. “We’ve just got to continue to grind and hang in there”.
The Rangers look to gain even more ground on the Mariners and Astros in the AL West and their spot in the playoffs is basically a formality at this point as they are far and away the best team in the division and have their sights set on top spot in the league. I certainly wanted to have our best guy, our hottest guy, on the mound there at the end.
“We did. It just didn’t work out”.
Sam Dyson struck out two in a flawless ninth for his 30th save, giving Texas 13 strikeouts. Kyle Seager drew a two-out walk and scored from first base on Adam Lind’s double to the gap in right-center to make it 5-1.
Diaz escaped by striking out Carlos Beltran on a full-count slider, but it took 24 pitches to complete the inning. “It’s extremely hard. Our guys making him work.and have him go back out there after that inning, (he was) probably not as sharp as he was”.
Adrian Beltre jokingly turned his helmet backward as he came to the plate to face ambidextrous pitcher Pat Venditte in the fifth, drawing a big grin from the Seattle reliever, who said Beltre did the same thing when they faced each other for the first time past year. I didn’t think he’d reach that fastball. “He teaches me little things”, Odor said. “My curveball hadn’t been very good recently, but today it was pretty good”. “I was bad. I made a lot of mistakes”.
“The fingernail started to lift up again”, he said. “The same as previous year but not as bad”. It hurt the most on cutters and change-ups.
– Leadoff single of Elvis Andrus.
M’s are still just 4.5 games back in the Wild Card.
Francisco Cervelli singled home Starling Marte from third against Chicago closer Aroldis Chapman with two outs in the ninth to trim the lead to one run.
Matt Bush (6-2), who gave up a go-ahead sacrifice fly to Robinson Cano in the eighth, came back with a ideal ninth. With Shawn O’Malley on first base, Martin’s single to center ended Darvish’s night. Beltre led off the inning with a sharp single, leaving Odor to face Seattle’s electric closer, Edwin Diaz, with the tying run on first. “He’s aggressive, we know that, we love that about him”, Banister said.
Grant writes that while the Rangers wait for Carlos Gomez to click at the plate, they’ve seen him impact games in other ways. When we play that kind of baseball, it shows how good we are.
PLUS: Dae-Ho Lee had two hits in five at-bats for his first hits in three games since returning from Triple-A Tacoma…
Rangers: LHP Hamels (14-4, 2.67) is tied with Tampa Bay’s Jake Odorizzi for the lowest ERA among AL starters since the All-Star break at 1.59. He has 18 RBIs in his last 21 games.
– Run-scoring triple to right field from Nomar Mazara. James Paxton committed two errors on Odor’s bunt in the third inning. He then made an ill-advised attempt to steal third and was thrown out easily. “Getting walked off is especially hard”.
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Odor had three hits, but twice was thrown out on the bases earlier in the game. Rangers pitchers haven’t allowed a homer in their last eight games, matching Miami for the longest streak in the majors this season.
