Four home runs from the Texas Rangers gave way to a 15-2 victory over the New York Yankees on Sunday afternoon to win the four-game series in Arlington, Texas.
The Rangers scored a combined 10 runs in the fifth and sixth innings to pull away and not look back, winning their third straight game over the Yankees after being swept in a three-game road series at Cincinnati earlier in the week.
Texas starter Martin Perez tossed six innings, allowing just one run on six hits and a walk. Perez (4-1) has completed at least six innings in each of his last two starts.
Yankees starter Nestor Cortes took the loss, giving up seven earned runs on five hits and four walks in an outing that spanned 4 2/3 innings. Cortes (3-2) struck out seven but surrendered three of the Rangers’ four home runs.
Texas put itself in front in the first, when two consecutive walks and a single from Adolis Garcia loaded the bases with one out. In the following at-bat, Josh Jung sent an outside pitch just past the right-field wall, launching his first career grand slam as the Rangers went up 4-0.
Perez retired the Yankees in order in the top of the second, but New York recorded consecutive hits in the third — a single from Aaron Hicks and a double by Anthony Volpe — leading to the Yankees’ first run on Oswald Peraza’s RBI groundout.
That was the extent of New York’s scoring, but the Rangers pressed on, putting 10 runs on the board between the fifth and sixth. Consecutive homers from Nathaniel Lowe and Garcia ignited a four-run fifth as Cortes was soon replaced by Albert Abreu on the mound.
Jonah Heim, the first batter Abreu faced, swatted a home run of his own, extending the lead to 8-1. Abreu gave up six runs on just two hits, as four walks and a Robbie Grossman RBI single created two more runs for the Rangers in the sixth. After Jung’s bases-loaded walk pushed across another run, Heim answered the call again, doubling to center field to score two more runs. Ezequiel Duran’s two-run single widened the margin to 14-1.
Sandy Leon’s RBI double in the eighth inning capped the Rangers’ offensive outburst, as Texas scored 10 or more runs for the first time since its 18-3 win over Oakland on April 22. It marked the Rangers’ seventh game this season scoring in double digits.
–Field Level Media
