For the second consecutive night, a wild pitch decided the outcome of the Rangers and Astros game, this time swinging in favor of Houston in a 4-3, 10-inning affair.
The two teams found themselves in a 3-3 tie after six innings, where the scoreboard would stay locked until the 10th. In the Astros portion of the added frame, and with a phantom runner on second, Houston sacrifice bunted and hit into a fielder’s choice, leaving the host team with a runner — José Altuve — on third. Texas elected to walk Yordan Alvarez and load the bases intentionally.
Two pitches later, Ranger’s reliever Jonathan Hernández threw an 87.2 mph slider into the dirt and passed Sam Huff, allowing Altuve to score the winning run.
“That was a weird one,” Astros skipper Dusty Baker told MLB Advanced Media. “That’s what you call an ugly win. We’ll take it. A win’s a win. In the big leagues, the hardest thing to do is to win.”
Baker’s sentiment is not lost on the Rangers and their faithful fans. Texas is the loser of nine of their last 10 games as they head into a day off on Thursday before returning to Arlington on Friday to start a three-game set with the AL East’s Blue Jays (76-60).
Rangers’ rookie lefty Cole Ragans got the start for Texas and pitched three hitless innings while walking and striking out three. Ragans, who recently came off the DL, was placed on a pitch count in his first game back in uniform and was pulled heading into the fourth after 49 throws, giving way to Brett Martin.
Ragans left the game with a 3-0 lead following Nathaniel Lowe’s 24th homer of the season in the first and RBI by Marcus Semien and Kole Calhoun in the third inning. The Rangers would be held scoreless for the rest of the contest.
Martin tossed for one inning, allowing one earned run on a hit and a walk. Dennis Santana earned his 18th hold of the year after pitching one no-hit inning, striking out two.
Santana’s stablemate, John King, would not fare as well. King earned his fourth blown save of the year after getting touched for two earned runs over 1.1 innings pitched, yielding three hits, one of which was a two-out, two-run homer to Kyle Tucker, knotting the game at 3-3.
Jesus Tinoco was spotless for Texas in the eighth ahead of Hernandez blowing the save, striking out two of the three Astros he faced in the bottom of the ninth inning.
Texas falls to 59-77 on the season as they continue to slide down the ranks in the AL West, half a game behind third-place Anaheim and 9.5 games better than cellar-dwelling Oakland (50-87).
The Rangers announced before the game that Josh Jung, one of the team’s top prospects, had been called up to the big leagues from the farm. Texas hopes Jung will become the team’s everyday third baseman, so he will likely remain on the roster through the remainder of the season.