Rangers Lose To Twins
By Art Garcia, The Sports Xchange
ARLINGTON, Texas — Phil Hughes danced out of trouble early Monday night, keeping the Minnesota Twins close.
That made one swing from Brian Dozier hold up.
Hughes remained undefeated on the road, and Dozier delivered a three-run double in the Twins’ 3-2 win over the Texas Rangers on Monday night at Globe Life Park.
“I executed some big pitches when I had to,” Hughes said. “Guys on, limiting damage. And there were a couple spots with guys in scoring position with one out where I was able to keep it to 2-0, and then Dozier comes through with a big hit.”
The Twins (9-10) won for only the second time in eight games and snapped Texas’ season-high four-game winning streak in the opener of a three-game series. The teams are back it Tuesday night.
Hughes (3-1) worked around six hits and a walk to limit Texas to two runs in six innings. The veteran right-hander is 3-0 on the road this season, and he improved to 3-3 lifetime against the Rangers.
Three Twins relievers pitched an inning each, with Brandon Kintzler tossing a scoreless ninth for his fifth save of the season.
“It was a good game, pitched well on both sides,” Minnesota manager Paul Molitor said. “Phil had a couple innings where he ran into some trouble, but he did some good damage control.”
Dozier provided all the offense the Twins needed with his two-out double in the fifth off Texas starter Martin Perez.
The Twins were coming off 2-7 homestand, and they played their first game outside of the American League Central. Minnesota is 6-2 in its past eight games against Texas dating to last season.
The Rangers (9-11) were trying to reach .500 for the first time this season.
Perez (1-3) was staked to a 2-0 lead but left after six innings trailing 3-2. The left-hander was done in by three walks, all coming in Minnesota’s three-run fifth.
Perez induced two inning-ending double plays in the first four innings to keep Minnesota scoreless but ran out of luck and control in a 30-pitch fifth.
He walked the first two Twins in the inning before nearly getting out of the jam with two strikeouts. Another walk followed, and Dozier cleared the bases with a double to left-center field for a 3-2 lead.
Texas starters had gone at least seven innings in three consecutive starts.
Rangers manager Jeff Banister was ejected for arguing with plate umpire Alfonso Marquez after Elvis Andrus struck out looking for the second out in the ninth. Several pitches called for strikes appeared to be outside the zone on television replays.
“Look, you guys watched the game, you had the monitor, you assess for yourself where some of the frustration was at,” Banister said in the postgame press conference.
Banister wasn’t alone in his anger over Marquez’s strike zone.
“I don’t like to make excuses or anything, but all we ask is just consistency,” catcher Jonathan Lucroy said. “I felt like from behind the plate that if we had the same zone then they don’t score those runs. You guys could all see on TV. I don’t need to go much further than that.
“I felt like the zone was very inconsistent, and that’s obviously out of your control.”
The Rangers took a 1-0 lead against Hughes with back-to-back doubles to lead off the second. Mike Napoli got it going with a line drive past diving center fielder Byron Buxton and scored on Rougned Odor’s double.
Odor was left stranded at third.
Texas tacked on a run in the fourth on Joey Gallo’s single to right, but it could have been more. The Rangers had runners at second and third with one out before Hughes struck out Lucroy and got Jurickson Profar to ground out.
