The Texas Rangers won their fourth game in a row as they beat the Boston Red Sox 7-3 at Globe Life Field on Wednesday night.
ARLINGTON, Texas -- For the 23rd time this season, the Texas Rangers are back at .500.
Texas took down the Boston Red Sox 7-3 at Globe Life Field, marking their fourth consecutive victory.
MacKenzie Gore got the start for the Rangers, making yet another appearance on just four days of rest.
Gore walked Red Sox leadoff hitter Roman Anthony on four pitches to open the game, which proved to be a small snapshot of the bigger picture of his outing.
The Rangers left-hander struggled with command for much of the night while featuring velocity that was down from his usual standards.
Just two batters after walking Anthony, Gore allowed a two-run home run to Boston first baseman Wilson Contreras to open the scoring. After the blast, Contreras improved to 10-for-17 with a pair of home runs in his career against Gore.
The Rangers would get one of the runs back in the bottom of the first when Jake Burger smashed a ground-rule double to center field to score Justin Foscue, who led off the inning with a double.
In the second inning, Gore fired a pitch and appeared to grab his left side. Rangers manager Skip Schumaker came out to the mound with pitching coach Jordan Tiegs and a trainer. Following a practice pitch, Gore remained in the game and would go on to throw two more scoreless innings.
Texas would tie the game in the fourth when Foscue came through with a two-strike, two-out RBI single. After the hit, Foscue had a batting average of over .300 in September.
Gore would come back out for the fifth but allowed the first two batters of the inning to reach base, prompting Schumaker to get Jakob Junis out of the bullpen to appear on his 34th birthday.
Gore would finish the night going four innings, allowing three runs on two hits and three walks. Uncharacteristically, Gore did not record a strikeout; in fact, he recorded just two swings and misses on the night.
Junis would go on to drop the ball while being on the rubber, resulting in a run-scoring balk to give the Red Sox a 3-2 lead.
However, it didn’t take long for the Rangers to get the run back. In the bottom half of the frame, Wyatt Langford came through with an RBI single to knot things at three.
The Rangers would strike for three runs in the seventh to take the lead as Brandon Nimmo laced an RBI double and Ezequiel Duran laced a two-RBI single to make it 6-3 Texas.
“We had a lot of big hits today,” Schumaker said. “Nimmo had a giant hit the other way. And then obviously 'The Solution' (Duran) coming through with two more RBI.”
Nathan Eovaldi would pitch the final four innings, retiring the final 11 batters of the game and earning the win out of the bullpen.
“Today was big…” Eovaldi said after the game. “For us right now, it’s big for us to win the series but we’ve gotta go out tomorrow (Thursday) and try to finish it off, every game matter.”
