Texas Rangers Hammer Royals Behind Andrew Heaney, Homers
ARLINGTON, Texas – Nolan Ryan has a statue outside of Globe Life Field.
The Lone Star State icon and baseball legend just doesn’t own the Texas Rangers franchise single-game record for consecutive strikeouts anymore.
That mark now belongs to Andrew Heaney, who mowed down nine Kansas City Royals in a row during Monday night's 11-2 blowout victory for the Rangers.
"It's obviously really cool," Heaney said of breaking Ryan's record.
Heaney (1-1) rebounded from an awful first start in a Texas uniform with a commanding performance. After allowing seven runs and only getting eight outs against the Baltimore Orioles a week prior, the left-hander completely baffled Kansas City.
The first 10 outs the Royals made were all strikeouts. After some trouble in the top of the first that led to an unearned run, Heaney struck out two straight to end the inning with two on base.
He struck out the side in the second and third innings before opening the fourth with another K. The streak of nine successive strikeouts bested both Ryan’s single-game record of seven in 1991 and Joe Barlow’s record of eight (over two games) set in 2021. Heaney’s nine in a row also tied the American League record, done twice previously.
Heaney went five innings, allowing just the unearned run and two hits alongside his 10 strikeouts. His career-high 14 strikeouts came against Texas in 2019.
Brock Burke replaced Heaney to start the sixth and along with Dane Dunning held Kansas City (3-8) to one run over four innings.
Corey Seager and Jonah Heim backed Heaney with solo home runs off Zack Greinke, as the Rangers improved to 6-4 overall and 5-2 at home. Texas has won its last two games after dropping the first two at the Chicago Cubs over the weekend.
Seager’s line-drive into the Rangers bullpen in the bottom half of the first tied the game at 1-1. Heim’s 413-foot blast made it 4-1 in the fourth.
Texas added seven more in the sixth to make it a rout, with Adolis García delivering a grand slam to left.
The three-game series continues Tuesday at 7:05 p.m. with Jacob deGrom (1-0) scheduled to make his third start for Texas going against former Ranger Jordan Lyles (0-2).
More From SI’s Inside The Rangers:
- Texas Rangers MVP in 2023?
- Predicting Texas Rangers 2023 Record
- Jose Altuve Injury Potentially Helps Texas Rangers Playoff Chances
- MLB Plan for Television Texas Rangers
- Why did Bochy Tab deGrom for Opening Day?
- Bally Sports Southwest to Televise Nearly All Rangers Games
- Texas Rangers to Wear Nike City Connect Jerseys for First Time
- Texas Rangers Unveil Exciting New Ballpark Food
- Rangers Believe They're as Good as Astros, Dodgers
- Rangers Rotation Set Behind Jacob deGrom
You can follow Art Garcia on Twitter @ArtGarcia92.
Catch up with Inside the Rangers on Facebook and Twitter.
