Thank goodness Texas Rangers starting pitcher Nathan Eolvaldi gave manager Skip Schumaker seven strong innings on Friday night. The Rangers needed every one of those innings in the end as Texas defeated the Toronto Blue Jays 6-5 at Rogers Centre.

Eovaldi is now 7-6 this season. In his seven innings of work, he allowed five hits, no earned runs, walked one, and struck out nine. Eovaldi now has a 3.95 ERA after this outing. But things got really sticky in the later innings due to some bullpen hijinx by relievers Robby Ahlstrom and Jakob Junis.

For starters, Ahlstrom worked just 0.1 innings, gave up one hit, two earned runs, walked one, and didn't strike out a Blue Jays hitter. Junis worked 0.2 innings and he gave up three hits, two earned runs, didn't walk a batter, struck out two, and struck out one.

Jacob Latz came on to stop the Toronto offense, earning his 16th save with a solid ninth inning.

Blue Jays starter Patrick Corbin took the loss, falling to 2-4 overall. Corbin worked 4.1 innings, allowed seven hits, five earned runs, walked one, struck out five, and gave up a home run, too. The Toronto bullpen kept the game tight going into the ninth inning, yet the Blue Jays' offense just couldn't get it in gear.

Texas jumped out to a 3-0 lead after scoring three runs in the top of the first inning. Wyatt Langford singled, then stole second base. Josh Jung was hit by a pitch to reach first base. Brandon Nimmo hit his 20th double this season, scoring Langford for a 1-0 lead.

With one out, Justin Foscue singled to left, scoring Jung and moving Nimmo to third base. Texas extended its lead to 2-0. Ezequiel Duran followed with an RBI single and the Rangers exited their half of the first with a 3-0 advantage.

The Rangers added two more runs in the top of the third inning. With one out, Burger walked. Foscue then hit a blast for his fifth home run this season, scoring Burger ahead of him and Texas went up 5-0.

And that's how the game remained until the Blue Jays stacked some things together in the bottom of the eighth inning. Ahlstrom came on to replace Eovaldi in the eighth and, well, Toronto took advantage of the situation.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit a two-run single, scoring Andrés Giménez and George Springer and tightening things at 5-2. Kazuma Okamoto then stepped up to the plate and smashed his 19th homer this season. Guerrero scored ahead of Okamoto and, all of a sudden, the Blue Jays are within a run at 5-4.

Latz came in and just shut the door on the Blue Jays to help the Rangers pick up a big victory.

With a traffic jam forming in the American League West Division, any victory for Texas right now can help try and separate from the pack. The Rangers are now 40-42 and in second place in the AL West. Toronto falls to 39-43 and the Blue Jays are in third place in the AL East Division.

These teams will play afternoon games on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday's start time is listed for 2:07 p.m. CT, while Sunday's first pitch is set for 12:37 p.m. CT.

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