Rangers History Today: The First Win at The Ballpark In Arlington
On this date in Texas Rangers history, the Rangers won their first regular-season game at The Ballpark in Arlington (later Globe Life Park in Arlington).
The game was on April 13, 1994, and the Rangers were coming off a 4-3 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers in their first home game in their new stadium. After a one-day break, the Rangers and the Brewers took the field once again and, oddly enough it was the same score — 4-3 — but this time the Rangers won in 10 innings.
The starting pitchers — Bill Wegman for Milwaukee and Steve Dreyer for Texas — didn’t figure in the final decision. The Brewers ran through four pitchers, with reliever Bob Scanlan taking his first loss of the season. The Rangers used six pitchers — including Rick Honeycutt — and Tom Henke recorded his first blown save, but also claimed his first win, in two innings of work.
The Rangers scored one run in each of the fourth, sixth and seventh innings, while the Brewers scored two runs in the fifth inning, and another in the top of the ninth, to tie the game and send it to extra innings.
Rangers second baseman Doug Strange hit his second home run of the season in the sixth inning, one of his two hits for the game. Gary Redus doubled and Juan González had a triple. First baseman Will Clark was the only other Rangers player with two hits.
In the tenth inning, the Rangers won in walk-off fashion. The Rangers started the inning with Chris James pinch-hitting for Rob Ducey, and James singled. Following James was Iván ‘Pudge’ Rodríguez, who worked Scanlan into a long at-bat and eventually singled, moving James to third base.
Esteban Beltré came on to pinch-hit after Rodriguez, and he drove in James to send the 45,455 in attendance home happy for the first time in 1994.
Also on this date …
April 13, 1992: The Rangers opened the home portion of the 1992 season with a 3-0 loss to the California Angels at Arlington Stadium. José Guzmán took the loss for the Rangers, while Jim Abbott took the win for the Angels, in front of 41,129. Monty Fariss and Juan González each had two hits for the Rangers.
April 13, 1999: Catcher Iván ‘Pudge’ Rodríguez has nine RBI in a game against the Seattle Mariners. Rodriguez went 4-for-5 in the 15-6 win at The Kingdome. Rodríguez also homered twice and had 10 total bases. At the time, it set a record for most RBI by a Rangers player in a single game.
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