July 24, 2022 - Game 94
W - Martín Pérez (8-2)
L - Paul Blackburn (6-6)
S- None
HR: TEX: García (17), Seager (23); OAK: Piscotty (3), Murphy (11), Pinder (8), Kemp (3)
Time of Game: 3:22
Rangers Cowboy Hat Winner: Jonah Heim (2nd)
Game Recap
Texas and Oakland completed the three-game series Sunday and the season series at Oakland. After two close tough losses, the Rangers tried to avoid a three-game sweep in the hands of the Oakland Athletics. Sunday was Martín Pérez's day for the first time after the All-Star break. Pérez is coming off a scoreless one inning in Los Angeles Tuesday for the All-Star game. Martín tried to bounce back after an exhausting start last Saturday against Seattle, where he walked four in five innings. The Rangers faced the Oakland Athletics' All-Star Paul Blackburn after Texas roughed him up eleven days ago in Arlington. "Blackburn is a good pitcher, but we him work today and hit a lot of balls hard," Chris Woodward said. "We haven't capitalized the last couple of games scoring first and getting on the board. I thought the at-bats were really good, very disciplined, using the whole field, a lot of backside, a lot of balls in the gap, and staying on pitches."
The Rangers came out swinging early. With two outs and Corey Seager on, Jonah Heim ripped a double to left field to put the Rangers up 1-0. Adolis García followed with a two-run shot to left field to cap off a 3-0 lead after the first inning. Oakland had a slight chance with two on and one out in their first inning. But, Martín struck out Chad Pinder and got Elvis Andrus to ground out to nail down the shutdown inning. Then, in the third inning, Leody Taveras continued his stretch of good hitting with a center-field single, scoring Adolis. "I feel really good," Leody Taveras said. "[I'm] trying every day to do the best I can and make it simple."
Corey Seager began the fifth inning with a dead-center field shot to extend the Texas lead to 5-0. Then the floodgates opened. With the bases loaded, Kole Calhoun drove in two with a single to center field. Ezequiel Duran followed with an RBI single to right, Josh Smith singled to score one, and Marcus Semien hit a sacrifice fly to score Duran. All that equated to a six-run fifth inning for the Rangers. Oakland avoided the shutout with an RBI groundout by Nick Allen, scoring Dermis Garcia. Texas added another run in the sixth inning with an RBI single to left field by Adolis García, scoring Jonah Heim for the third time on the day.
Oakland's offense crawled to make it a ballgame. Chad Pinder hit a two-run double and Stephen Piscotty launched a two-run home run to left field. The Athletics put a four-spot in the eighth to make it a six-run lead. Oakland had two more on, but Seth Brown was robbed of a two-run single on another fantastic play by Josh Smith. The Athletics made things even more interesting in the ninth. Oakland went three straight home runs by Sean Murphy, Chad Pinder, and Tony Kemp off Brett Martin to crawl within three runs. Texas' eleven runs was enough to stabilize a win Sunday to avoid the sweep.
Martín Pérez threw seven quality innings on Sunday. Despite some command troubles with three walks, he managed to limit the Athletics offense to one lone run on four hits. Pérez struck out six in his seven innings of work. "[Martín] was executing from pitch one to one-hundred [or] however many he threw," Woodward said. "It was a good outing for him [and] we needed that today." Garrett Richards came on to get work. However, the work didn't end well. Richards recorded one out, but allowed four hits, four runs, and a walk. José Leclerc took over to try to get out of the eighth inning jam. He gave up a hit, but recorded two outs, no runs, and got defensive help. Brett Martin also got work in on Sunday. Martin allowed three home runs and his first earned runs since late May. However, Brett was able to gather three outs to prevent an improbable comeback as Texas held on for the win.
Postgame Notes
Taveras, García, and Jonah Heim were a combined 10 for 13 with four doubles, a home run, seven runs scored, and five RBI. Heim's three doubles is a Rangers franchise record.
Adolis García hit his eleventh home run during day games (leads all American League). It's tied for the most in MLB with Paul Goldschmidt, Austin Riley, and Juan Soto. He also had a career high with four hits Sunday.
Since June 27th, Leody Taveras is 27 for 67 (.403). The twenty-seven hits include ten doubles, three home runs, fifteen runs scored, and eighteen runs driven in.
Jonah Heim has a .455 slugging percentage with two strikes, highest in MLB
Paul Blackburn's ten earned runs on Sunday were the most in his career. Blackburn has allowed twenty-one earned runs in his last three starts as opposed to twenty-eight in his previous sixteen starts.
Corey Seager did not homer in his first five games against Oakland in 2022. However, Seager has five home runs in his last eight games against the Athletics.
The Rangers scored ten or more runs for the eighth time in 2022. Three of the eight games have been against the Oakland Athletics, and two have been at Oakland.
Texas goes 6-4 at Oakland in 2022. It's the most wins at the Coliseum since 2015.
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