July has been a month that the Rangers and their faithful would probably like to forget. The boys from Arlington are 7-14 during summer’s middle month, and their 4-3 drubbing by the Mariners in Seattle on Monday night was their fifth loss in a row to their AL West foe.
The Rangers are currently on a four-city, 11-game West Coast road swing, which concludes on July 31 in Anaheim.
Thus far, Texas is 2-3 on the road trip and has slipped to nine games under .500 (43-52), 20 games behind front-running Houston in the AL West (64-33), 12 games behind Seattle in second, and eight games out of the final AL Wildcard spot.
However, Texas needs to win only 18 more contests this season – with 67 games remaining – to improve on last season’s abysmal 60-102 outing.
After bashing the A’s 11-8 on Sunday, the Mariners did the small things required to win the ball game, Seattle’s skipper told MLB.com of the narrow victory over Texas.
“It really ends up defining your season, finding ways to win games like tonight,” manager Scott Servais said. “It wasn’t pretty. Offensively, I didn’t think we did a whole lot to get excited about, but you find a way. It was good pitching, locking it down, making good plays defensively, and taking advantage and opportunities out there.”
Glen Otto got the starting nod for Texas and came into the contest sporting a record of 4-6 on the season but just 1-4 in his previous six games. Against Seattle, the 26-year-old righty lasted 5.1 innings, allowing three earned runs on seven hits while yielding a solitary walk and fanning five.
Texas’ third baseman Ezekiel Duran gave Otto and the Rangers the only lead of the night when he opened the third inning with a single, moved to second on a single by Josh H. Smith, advanced to third on a Marcus Semien ground-out, and scored following a wild pitch unleashed by Seattle starter Chris Flexen.
It was the first and last time the Rangers would lead in the game.
The Mariners collected runs in the fourth and fifth innings off Otto. In the seventh, an inning after Adolis Garcia launched his 18th home run of the season to narrow the tally to 3-2, Seattle netted an insurance run off Ranger reliever Brock Burke, placing Texas in a two-run hole.
Dennis Santana tossed 1/3 of an inning, and José Leclerc fanned three in his inning of work to keep Texas in the contest.
Trailing by two in the top of the final frame, Nathaniel Lowe smacked an 87.7 mph Diego Castillo slider into the right-center bleachers to open the ninth and cut the team’s deficit to 4-3. Leody Taveras — leading the team in hitting with an average of .337 in 104 at-bats – singled to right field and then Kole Calhoun to represent the go-ahead run.
The next three Texas batters – Duran, Josh H. Smith, and Marcus Semien – went down without a whimper, 1-2-3, to close out the 4-3 contest won by Seattle, dropping their fourth straight to the Mariners.
Texas will look to right the ship in Seattle on Tuesday with a 9:10 p.m. CDT start time. Probable pitchers in the contest are Dane Dunning (1-6, 4.42) and George Kirby (2-3, 3.78) for Seattle.