Houston, who leapfrogged Seattle into second place on Monday, trails the Rangers by 8.5 games.
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Texas Rangers’ Carlos Gomez follows through for a grand slam swing off a pitch from Seattle Mariners’ Felix Hernandez in the fourth inning of a baseball game, Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2016, in Arlington, Texas.
In Milwaukee, Stephen Piscotty scored on a throwing error in the ninth inning after Carlos Martinez struck out a career-high 13.
Lee Dae-ho’s three-hit game couldn’t stop the Seattle Mariners from losing their fifth straight game.
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) – Rougned Odor quickly atoned for his baserunning blunders with a big blast for the Texas Rangers.
Rougned Odor’s two-run homer in the ninth inning lifted the Rangers to an 8-7 victory over the Mariners and marked the first blown save in Diaz’s career.
“It’s huge to have your 1 and 2 go back to back”, Texas manager Jeff Banister said.
The Rangers got even at 6-6 in the seventh on RBI singles by Beltre and Jonathan Lucroy. I was surprised. He moved a little bit up on the plate, and I thought he was looking for a slider. “I just came from the media room to get a plan on what I’m trying to do today”.
The M’s have gone 2-8 in their last 10 games and have really picked an inopportune time to go on a slide as they are in the midst of a wild card hunt in the American League and last night’s loss is a microcosm of their season as they lost in 10 innings after taking the lead in the top.
The comeback win also put the Rangers at 30-8 for a.789 winning percentage in one-run decisions.
“We were able to string some good at-bats together and get some runs on the board”, said Kyle Seager, who drove in two runs and scored one. Seattle pitcher James Paxton mishandled the bunt and then threw wildly to first and Odor ended up on second base.
The ball was right in front of Odor in the seventh when was easily thrown out by right fielder Shawn O’Malley when trying to stretch his hit into a double in the seventh. When we play that kind of baseball, it shows how good we are. “We will maintain that mentality all the way through the end”, Banister said. “There is a certain margin of error in some situations”.
Matt Bush (6-2), who gave up a go-ahead sacrifice fly to Robinson Cano in the eighth, came back with a flawless ninth.
After falling behind 4-0 when Beltre hit his 24th home run, a two-run shot in the third, the Mariners pushed ahead against suddenly erratic All-Star lefty and AL ERA leader Cole Hamels with six runs over the next two innings.
“We got a couple of decent starts on this trip”. “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”.
At worst, the Mariners are so much better off today than they were headed into last year’s offseason. Leonys Martin greeted reliever Alex Claudio with another run-scoring single, though the lefty worked 2 2-3 scoreless innings. It was the club’s sixth win of the season when trailing after eight innings, most in the majors.
Also expected back is Nelson Cruz, who sat out Tuesday’s game with a nerve issue in his right hand. The injury was sustained on a checked swing Sunday. Grube is 1-7 with a 4.13 ERA in 25 games (19 starts) in Triple-A this year. He threw 41 of his 60 pitches for strikes. Lewis (strained right lat) has been out since late June.
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Musgrove (2-2) struck out seven, walked three and allowed three hits over 5 1/3innings, and then Luke Gregerson, Pat Neshek and Brad Peacock closed things out.Musgrove had allowed 13 runs over his last two starts. He faced the Rangers five times last season.
