Adolis Garcia stood in the batting circle on Sunday afternoon in the bottom of the ninth with Texas Rangers trailing 9-8 after Corey Seager had just hit his career-high 28th home run of the season, a two-run job and his second of the day.
Nathanial Lowe — who had also hit a homer when he and Seager went back-to-back in the bottom of the sixth — was at the plate with his team down a run, almost certainly knowing that Garcia, standing on deck, was 0-2 on the day with a 23-game consecutive hitting streak in jeopardy.
With one out on the board — and Texas walking down what was once a 9-0 deficit — Lowe pounded a pitch from Tiger’s reliever Gregory Soto into the ground in front of the plate. While Soto and Detroit catcher Eric Haase both watched, hoping the ball would roll foul, Lowe scooted to first for a base hit, assuring Garcia his final attempt at the plate was also the potential winning run.
Bubba Thompson replaced Lowe on the basepath and swiped second for his eighth consecutive stolen base in his young career during Garcia’s at-bat, advancing the tying run 90 feet closer to home.
Garcia worked the count to 2-0 before taking a mighty swing and a miss at an off-speed slider. Joe Jimenez — who relieved Soto for Detroit after the Lowe single — tossed Garcia two more mid-80 mph sliders (a foul and second swinging strike) before blowing a 95.2 mph four-seam fastball past the righty slugger for strike three, extinguishing Garcia’s hit streak at 23 games.
Kole Calhoun had a chance to drive Thompson home in the next at-bat — and hit a 2-run homer in the sixth as the Rangers mounted a comeback — but hit a deep, lazy fly to center field for the final out of the game in the 9-8 loss.
After scoring seven runs in the first three innings of the Ranger’s 7-6 on Friday night in Arlington, it seemed as if the team might keep chugging along as the winners of five of their last six heading into the weekend.
Detroit, however, had different ideas for their weekend in North Texas.
The Tigers came into the three-game series against the Rangers as the owners of the second-worst record in the America League (49-78) and the worst in the league at scoring runs. They spent their time in Arlington scoring 35 runs over their three-day stay, winning the series 2-1 in a summarily convincing fashion.
Texas (58-69) will have a day off Monday then host a two-game set with the Houston Astros. The first pitch for Tuesday, August 30, at Globe Life Field is set for 7:05 p.m., with Dane Dunning the probable start for Texas. Houston’s pitcher has yet to be determined.
