The Texas Rangers broke open a tie game by scoring three runs in the seventh inning and defeated the visiting Boston Red Sox 7-3 on Wednesday night.
Texas’ seventh featured Brandon Nimmo’s RBI double that drove in Corey Seager to give the Rangers (76-76) a 4-3 lead, and Ezequiel Duran’s two-run single that scored Jake Burger and Nimmo to push the lead to 6-3. All three runs were charged to reliever Erik Miller (4-1).
Nate Eovaldi (11-9) pitched four scoreless innings in relief to earn the win, holding Boston to one hit. The win moved Texas into a tie with Houston for first place in the American League West, although the Astros own the tiebreaker.
Willson Contreras homered for the Red Sox, who were limited to three hits and will try to salvage the three-game series finale Thursday. Boston (82-70) holds a five-game lead over the Chicago White Sox for the second AL wild-card spot.
Contreras hit a two-run homer, his team-high 27th, against Texas starter MacKenzie Gore to put Boston up 2-0 in the top of the first. Gore pitched four-plus innings and gave up three runs on two hits.
Josh Jung had three of the Rangers’ 13 hits. Burger and Justin Foscue each added two hits. One of Burger’s hits was a ground-rule double that drove in Foscue and cut Boston’s lead to 2-1 in the bottom of the first against starter Jake Bennett.
Texas tied the game on Foscue’s RBI single that scored Wyatt Langford in the fourth, but Boston took a 3-2 lead in the fifth when Caleb Durbin scored on a Jakob Junis balk.
The Rangers pulled even again in the fifth. Jung hit a leadoff double and scored on Langford’s two-out single off reliever Greg Weissert to make it 3-3. Bennett allowed three runs on eight hits in 4 2/3 innings, striking out seven and walking one.
Texas took control in the seventh and extended the lead to 7-3 in the eighth on Seager’s RBI single.
