Adolis Garcia, Dane Dunning Lift Texas Rangers Past Braves
ARLINGTON, Texas – Dane Dunning turned in another solid outing, Adolis García homered and the Texas Rangers downed the Atlanta Braves 7-4 in a battle of first-place clubs Tuesday night at Globe Life Field.
The AL West-leading Rangers (26-16) avenged a 12-0 shutout loss in the series opener Monday night with an efficient, all-around effort. Texas improved to 13-7 at home and is in position to win a fourth consecutive series.
Dunning, making his third start in place of Jacob deGrom in the rotation, tied his season high by going six innings and set a new one with 92 pitches. The right-hander moved to 4-0 after scattering six hits, giving up one run and striking out four.
García put the Rangers in front 3-1 with a two-run, opposite-field blast in the fourth off Atlanta starter Jared Shuster. The right fielder’s 11th home run of the season traveled 365 feet on a line, barely clearing the wall in right.
Robbie Grossman led off the inning with a single and scored on Nathaniel Lowe’s double, setting up García for the home team’s first lead.
Jonah Heim added a two-out single in the sixth to score García, extending the Rangers’ lead to 4-1. Heim also extended his hitting streak to a career-high 14 games, which is the longest active streak in the Majors.
The Rangers tacked on two more runs in the seventh on singles from Marcus Semien and Grossman to make it 6-1.
Texas reliever John King pitched a scoreless seventh, but Jonathan Hernández ran into major trouble in the eighth.
He started the inning by giving up a massive 455-foot homer to straight-away center by Ronald Acuna Jr. Two batters later, Sean Murphy hit a two-run blast to right that bounced of García's glove.
Josh Sborz came in and got three outs, preserving a 6-4 lead. Ezequiel Duran gave the Rangers more breathing room with a solo shot to left in the bottom of the eighth.
Texas closer Will Smith worked a scoreless ninth for his eighth save.
Atlanta (26-16) got on the board first in the second on Orlando Arcia’s single to score Ozzie Albies.
The Rangers hoped to have Corey Seager in the lineup, but the star shortstop has been bothered by a stomach bug over the last few days. He’s expected back for Wednesday’s series finale.
Nathan Eovaldi (5-2, 2.70) is set to start the rubber game for Texas, with Spencer Strider (4-1, 2.51) going for the NL East leaders. First pitch is scheduled for 7:05 p.m.
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