{"id":442962,"date":"2026-09-21T13:50:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T13:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/442962\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T13:50:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T13:50:24","slug":"playoff-hopeful-blue-jays-avoid-series-sweep-with-7-2-win-over-al-west-leading-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/442962\/","title":{"rendered":"Playoff hopeful Blue Jays avoid series sweep with 7-2 win over AL West-leading Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) \u2014 Toronto leadoff hitter Brett Bateman reached base and scored three times, twice knocked in by Nathan Lukes, and the Blue Jays beat the AL West-leading Texas Rangers 7-2 on Sunday to avoid a series sweep in the matchup of playoff hopefuls.<\/p>\n<p>Bateman walked twice against Texas starter Jacob deGrom (11-10), scoring on a sacrifice fly by Lukes in the first and a go-ahead RBI single by Kazuma Okamota in the fifth. Bateman had a leadoff double to ignite a four-run seventh, scoring on a single by Lukes.<\/p>\n<p>With six games remaining, the Rangers (78-78) kept a one-game lead in the AL West after Houston (77-79) lost 4-2 at home to NL East champion Atlanta. The Astros own the division tiebreaker.<\/p>\n<p>Toronto (77-79) had the same record as the Astros, and both were 2 1\/2 games behind the Chicago White Sox for the third and final wild card.<\/p>\n<p>Spencer Arrighetti (9-9), the second of seven Blue Jays pitchers, got the win despite giving up the only Texas runs over his two innings.<\/p>\n<p>DeGrom, who has been dealing with mild groin tightness, left with the bases loaded in the fifth and the Rangers down 3-2. Left-handed reliever Robert Garcia induced an inning-ending double-play grounder on his first pitch.<\/p>\n<p>DeGrom allowed five hits, walked four and hit another batter. The two-time Cy Young Award winner&#8217;s two strikeouts put his season total at 196, just short of his fifth career 200-strikeout season.<\/p>\n<p>Lukes had a single and scored on Sean Keys&#8217; double in the third for a 2-0 Blue Jays lead. Texas got even on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/video\/spencer-arrighetti-in-play-run-s-to-jake-burger-t1jgrc?partnerId=web_video-playback-page_video-share\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jake Burger&#8217;s 27th homer<\/a>, a two-run shot in the fourth that went 398 feet and deflected off Bateman&#8217;s extended glove when he leaped at the wall in center field.<\/p>\n<p>Toronto opens a three-game series in Baltimore on Monday night. The Rangers have a day off before opening their final home series Tuesday night against the New York Mets.<\/p>\n<p>See AP\u2019s full MLB coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) \u2014 Toronto leadoff hitter Brett Bateman reached base and scored three times, twice knocked in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,152483,153096,53311,39086,153094,116155,23681,202,196,42094,942,45692,153095,99620,27],"class_list":["post-442962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-blue-jays-rangers-score","tag-brett-bateman","tag-jacob-degrom","tag-jake-burger","tag-kazuma-okamota","tag-nathan-lukes","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","tag-robert-garcia","tag-sean-keys","tag-spencer-arrighetti","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442962","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=442962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}