Big Game Nate delivered. And Wyatt Langford showed he’s one tough opponent.
Nathan Eovaldi allowed one run on three hits over seven innings for his 10th victory of the season, and Langford went 3-for-4 with two doubles and an RBI as the Texas Rangers defeated the Seattle Mariners 7-1 Saturday night in Arlington, Texas.
The loss dropped the defending American League West champion Mariners into third place in the division. The first-place Rangers have won the first two games in the four-game series that will continue on Sunday afternoon when ace right-handers Logan Gilbert (8-6, 3.38 ERA) of Seattle and Jacob deGrom (7-6, 3.76) of Texas oppose each other for the third time this season.
Langford fouled back-to-back pitches off his lower body before delivering a run-scoring double in the second inning as the Rangers bolted to a 5-0 lead. He exited for a defensive replacement in the seventh. X-rays came back negative, and the Rangers hope to have him available for the final two games of the series.
“I think both (Eovaldi and Langford) stepped up in a big game tonight,” Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said. “I don’t know if it’s a statement. I would just say that they showed up in a big way in a big game in the middle of July. That’s the biggest takeaway for me, one of the best games I’ve seen Evo pitch this year, and Wyatt Langford … that just shows you what kind of player he is.
“The toughness — he was not coming out of that game, no matter what, no matter how hard I tried. It just kind of shows you what he’s made of.”
The Rangers improved to 6-2 against Seattle this season, including 5-0 at home. Texas has won both head-to-head clashes between Gilbert and deGrom this season.
“To me, (winning the first two games), I think it makes me hungry for more,” Eovaldi said of the current series. “We got the first two. We got deGrom going out there again [on Sunday]. It’s important to win the series. You don’t want to just split it, and I think right now we’ve got momentum in our favor. It’s just about going out there and continuing to do what we’ve been doing.”
It was the fourth straight defeat for the Mariners, who dropped 2 1/2 games behind Texas and were passed in the AL West standings by Houston.
Mariners third baseman J.P. Crawford, who missed the previous four games with a sore wrist, returned and went 2-for-3 with a run-scoring double.
“We’re a way better team than what we’ve been playing like this whole year,” Crawford said. “We all know that, but yeah, it’s definitely frustrating. But we can’t do anything about the past, so we’ve just got to keep working hard to get going and finish where we need to finish.”
Gilbert is coming off a 6-3 victory against visiting San Francisco last Sunday in a game in which he allowed three runs on four hits over six innings, with one walk and 10 strikeouts.
He’s 5-4 with a 2.93 ERA in 18 career starts against the Rangers, though he has dropped two decisions against them this season — 2-1 on April 6 in Arlington, Texas, and 5-0 on April 17 in Seattle. Gilbert allowed two earned runs in each of those games.
For Texas, deGrom lost 10-3 to the visiting Chicago White Sox in his most recent outing on Monday, giving up five runs on seven hits over 4 2/3 innings.
He’s 2-2 with a 2.95 ERA in nine career starts against Seattle. He didn’t get a decision in either of his previous starts against the Mariners this season. The 38-year-old deGrom allowed one run on one hit over five innings in the former and pitched four scoreless innings in the latter.
–Field Level Media
