Texas Rangers Bounce Back Against Yankees

A baseball season is a marathon and not a sprint. It’s best not to overreact to a four-game losing streak or a three-game winning streak.

The Texas Rangers experienced both last week. That isn’t lost on manager Bruce Bochy. While his quarter-century of experience tells him noting was clinched last week, he was happy to see his Rangers right the ship with three straight wins against the New York Yankees entering a Monday off.

“I really thought it was important that we bounce back and show that we have that capability,” Bochy said.

Last week the Rangers faced the Cincinnati Reds riding a high of four straight series victories. The last-place Reds offered the Rangers a chance to keep building on a slim American League West lead.

The series went nothing like the Rangers hoped it would. They lost all three to Cincinnati, with the first two featuring blown saves by Jose Leclerc and Ian Kennedy. The Reds won the three games by a combined four runs and two in walk-off fashion.

The Rangers wasted a golden opportunity.

“We had a really tough series in Cincinnati,” Bochy said.

Then the Rangers returned home to host the Yankees for a four-game series and lost the opener. The Rangers didn’t blow a lead, but they fell back into a tie for the division lead with the Houston Astros.

On Friday the Rangers sent Jacob deGrom to the mound to do what an ace does — stop the streak. And he did, sort of. He retired the first 10 hitters and the Rangers staked him to a 5-0 lead before he left the game in the fourth inning with right elbow inflammation. He landed on the 15-day injured list Saturday.

The bullpen — after a lost trip to Cincinnati — came through. Dane Dunning threw 3 1/3 innings of three-hit relief, gave up two runs and then handed the ball to Jonathan Hernández and Will Smith, the latter getting the save to snap the streak.

The momentum of that win reverberated for the rest of the weekend. Nathan Eovaldi threw a complete-game shutout for just the second time in his career on Saturday. On Sunday, the Rangers’ offense blew away Yankees starter Nestor Cortes — thanks in part of a first-inning grand slam by Josh Jung — and six quality innings from Martín Pérez for a 15-2 victory.

Resilience is one of those qualities that a contending baseball team needs in order to stay in the race. The Rangers (17-11) enter Tuesday’s two-game series with the Arizona Diamondbacks riding a three-game winning streak and leading the AL West by two games.

An up-and-down week allowed the Rangers to prove something to themselves and to their manager.

“To come back against a really good team and just play really good ball,” Bochy said. “I mean we pitched well, we swung the bats well and played good defense. It was just a great series for us.”

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