Rangers’ offence wakes up in 8-1 win over Blue Jays
The Texas Rangers snapped their losing streak in style on Wednesday with an 8-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays.
Texas took control of the game early when Ian Kinsler led the game off with a home run over the left-center field fence. Jeff Francoeur hit a RBI single to give the Rangers a 2-0 lead after the top half of the first.
“We forced them to get back on their heels a little bit and that’s the type of baseball that we play normally,” Kinsler said. “It’s nice to get back to that.”
Starting pitcher Derek Holland looked good over five innings of work, holding the Blue Jays off the scoreboard and only allowing three hits and two walks while striking out eight. It was his first win since mid-May.
Four relievers combined to hold the Blue Jays to just two hits and a single run over the remainder of the game to preserve the win for Holland. After giving up seven home runs in the first two games of the series with Toronto, the pitching staff only gave up one Wednesday for the only run the Blue Jays scored.
“Derek and the other pitchers did a great job and we stopped them from putting up runs via the home run,” Rangers manager Ron Washington said. “I do believe that as long as we can keep them in the ballpark, we’re going to beat them.”
For a change the Rangers pitching staff got some support from their offence. Six different players had RBI hits during the game with Nelson Cruz leading the way with three hits including a home run in the top of the ninth that made the score 7-1. Dave Murphy ended the scoring with a ninth inning single that scored Vladimir Guerrero to make the score 8-1.
“When you’re not doing what you want to do, the mood can get somber,” Washington said. “We just had to get back to doing what we can do. Tonight we did, and tonight we had some fun.”
During the five-game losing streak the Rangers were outscored 33-19.
Josh Hamilton was out of the line-up once again after injuring his ribs Saturday while making a catch against the outfield wall.
With the win the Rangers improved to 76-63 on the season and were able to maintain their seven game lead over the Oakland Athletics in the AL West.
Texas will face the Blue Jays on Thursday in the final game of a four game series. Scheduled to take the mound for the Rangers is Colby Lewis; Shawn Hill is set to do so for the Blue Jays.
Lewis will be looking to win for the first time since 16 July.
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