Rangers shut out Mariners in series opener

Despite a somewhat slow start to the season, Yovani Gallardo is hitting his groove at the right time. In his last six outings, starting with the beginning of August, he has allowed no runs three times and allowed no more than four runs in any of his starts. His hot streak continued today with another great outing against the Mariners. He pitched 5.1 innings, allowing five hits and no runs as he bumped his record to 12-9. He hasn’t lost since July 19th, winning five straight decisions. Andrew Faulkner, Sam Dyson and Shawn Tolleson came in and finished the job as Tolleson picked up his 30th save. Roenis Elias (4-8) took the loss despite allowing only five hits to the Rangers.

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Neither team got on the board until the sixth inning when Adrian Beltre hit a two run single to score Shin-Soo Choo and Delino DeShields. Up 2-0, the Rangers tacked on one more in the seventh when Rougned Odor scored on a wild pitch to make it 3-0.

Mike Napoli went 3-4 in this game with three singles. He was the only Ranger to pick up multiple hits as Choo, Beltre and Odor combined to get the rest of Texas’ six hits. Seattle’s Brad Miller got the only extra base hit in this game, a triple in the fifth inning.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before–the Rangers are just two games behind the Astros with the Astros falling to the A’s on Monday. On September 2nd, the Rangers won and the Astros lost and the Rangers got within two games. Since that day both teams have alternated wins and losses. It’s been a yo-yo effect for the Rangers who went from two games back to three and back and forth each day.

Cole Hamels will take the mound for Texas tomorrow against Taijuan Walker. First pitch is at 9:10 PM CT.