{"id":441673,"date":"2026-09-20T04:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T04:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/441673\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T04:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T04:36:09","slug":"rangers-unpredictable-season-takes-them-into-first-place-once-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/441673\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers’ unpredictable season takes them into first place once again"},"content":{"rendered":"

ARLINGTON \u2014 And, just like that, the\u00a0Rangers<\/a> are a first-place team.<\/p>\n

Just how they drew it up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Rangers reclaimed first place in the AL West with a week left to play in the regular season with an utterly bizarre 6-2 win vs. the Toronto Blue Jays at Globe Life Field on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

They got fewer than two innings out of their starting pitcher, scored nearly all of their runs thanks in some part to an opponent’s miscue and now hold a one-game lead over their in-state rival for a playoff spot with seven games left to play. The Houston Astros lost 6-3 vs. the Atlanta Braves on Saturday night to help break what had been a tie record-wise atop the division. The Rangers have not been alone in first place since\u00a0Aug. 24.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The win was \u2014 much like this entire season has been \u2014 a strange and unpredictable ride. Rangers right-handed pitcher Cal Quantrill<\/a> recorded only four outs before he exited the game with right lat tightness and forced an already overworked bullpen into action earlier than expected.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, on a homestand already littered with unlikely heroes in unlikely roles, left-handed pitcher Jordan Montgomery joined in on the fun. Montgomery pitched 3 2\/3 scoreless emergency innings, allowed no hits and walked only one batter to bail his team out in a must-win game. He turned the ball over to right-handed pitcher Nathan Eovaldi \u2014 who like Montgomery was also a playoff standout once upon a time who’s worked out of the bullpen since his return from an elbow injury \u2014 for an inning of work before left-handed pitcher Robert Garcia, right-handed pitcher Chase Silseth and left-handed pitcher Jacob Latz finished the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays didn’t record a hit until the sixth inning. Eovaldi hit shortstop Andr\u00e9s Gim\u00e9nez with a pitch to start the sixth inning, allowed a single from center fielder Brett Bateman to advance him to second base and another from catcher Alejandro Kirk to score him. Toronto scored again in the seventh inning when pinch hitter Davis Schneider hit Garcia’s first pitch over the left field wall for a solo home run.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Rangers only needed one hit to score their first three runs off right-handed pitcher\u00a0Jos\u00e9 Soriano. In the first inning, third baseman Josh Jung hit an opposite field solo home run. In the second inning, after left fielder Wyatt Langford walked and second baseman Nicky Lopez was hit by a pitch, the Rangers scored twice thanks to opponent miscues. Langford scored from second base when shortstop Andr\u00e9s Gim\u00e9nez cleanly fielded catcher Danny Jansen’s ground ball but errantly tossed it into right field. Lopez scored from third base when Soriano bounced a wild pitch off catcher Alejandro Kirk.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Texas scored three more runs in the sixth inning in equally fortuitous fashion. Langford hit a double to the wall that left fielder Myles Straw misplayed to score Jung (hit by pitch) from second base. Jansen was hit by right-handed pitcher Paul Sewald’s sweeper to score right fielder Brandon Nimmo (single) with the bases loaded. Center fielder Evan Carter hit a sacrifice fly to Bateman, whose throw to home plate skipped past Kirk, who Langford hurdled before he scored.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kirk, of course, wasn’t the only thing that got leapfrogged Saturday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON \u2014 And, just like that, the\u00a0Rangers are a first-place team. Just how they drew it up.\u00a0 The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,89744],"class_list":["post-441673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-tp-texas-rangers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}