Yu Darvish was once again excellent today. He seems to really dominate the Astros. When he left the game in the seventh, his team led 3-0.
But newly acquired late inning bullpen pitcher Jeremy Jeffress gave up two in the eight inning, and Sam Dyson blew just his third save of the season, and the game was tied.
The Rangers have not fared very well on the road in one run games. The Rangers, by the way, left the bases loaded in two late innings including the eighth.
The tenth went by without incident, then the Rangers scored two in the eleventh off the bats of Ian Desmond and Rougned Odor. Since the Rangers have had trouble winning these kind of games, to me this was a very big win.
You always want to win, especially against the team who is behind or chasing you — well-played game,” Desmond said according to the Rangers website. “Darvish did a great job, bullpen did a great job, offense was scratching and clawing, and we got as much as we needed.”
The Astros played hard and did a good job coming back, but just didn’t have enough to beat the Rangers today.
The Rangers are now 10-2 against the Astros, and they have a seven game lead over the Mariners and a 7.5 game lead over the Astros.
Up next they have a home/away series against the Rockies, with Cole Hamels going tomorrow. The Rangers need to cotintinue to win to keep ahead of the competition. Neither Seattle or Houston is going to go away.
