The Texas Rangers won for the sixth time in their past seven games, defeating the Toronto Blue Jays 6-2 on Saturday in Arlington, Texas.
Rangers starting pitcher Cal Quantrill left the game after 1 1/3 innings with right lat tightness. Jordan Montgomery (1-0) replaced him and held Toronto hitless through 3 2/3 innings.
Jose Soriano (12-8) gave up six runs (five earned) on four hits and struck out eight in five innings for the Blue Jays (76-79), who dropped to three games behind the Chicago White Sox for the final wild-card berth in the American League.
Josh Jung gave Texas (78-77) a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first with a home run to right field.
The Rangers added two more runs despite not recording a hit in the second frame. Wyatt Langford drew a walk to lead off and, one out later, Nicky Lopez caught a pitch off his right foot. Langford came around to score on a fielder’s choice when shortstop Andres Gimenez missed the throw to second base on Danny Jansen’s grounder.
Lopez, who advanced to third on Gimenez’s error, scored on Soriano’s wild pitch to make it 3-0.
Toronto didn’t get its first baserunner until the fourth inning on a walk to Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and it took until the sixth for its first hit, against Nathan Eovaldi.
A curveball from Eovaldi caught Gimenez on the foot to lead off the sixth frame. Gimenez moved to second on Brett Bateman’s one-out single, and Alejandro Kirk brought him in with a two-out base hit to center to cut it to 3-1.
The hosts widened the gap in the bottom half. Jung was hit by a pitch, Brandon Nimmo singled and Langford’s double off the left field wall scored Jung to push the advantage to 4-1.
That ended Soriano’s night, replaced by Paul Sewald. After striking out Jake Burger for the first out, Sewald intentionally walked Lopez to load the bases. He then hit Danny Jansen, forcing in Nimmo. Evan Carter then connected for a sacrifice fly that brought Langford home to extend it to 6-1.
Toronto’s Davis Schneider pinch-hit a solo shot to left center to narrow it to 6-2 in the seventh.
