Rangers Beat Tigers
By Rich Shook, The Sports Xchange
DETROIT — The Texas Rangers are beginning to solve their problems on the road and against left-handed starting pitching.
Mike Napoli and Pete Kozma each hit solo home runs Sunday night to help Yu Darvish maintain his perfect record against Detroit as Texas defeated the Tigers 5-2 for its 11th win in 12 games.
The Rangers won the first and last games of a three-game weekend set at Comerica Park, beating two southpaw starters and improving to 8-13 away from home. Texas now owns six wins in 10 games when facing a left-handed starter.
“That was nice,” Texas manager Jeff Banister said. “Us facing a couple left-handers, getting the offense that we got against the two left-handers to get two wins. You feel comfortable with that, feel good about that. There’s a lot of feel-good going into Boston.”
Darvish (5-2) has made seven career starts against Detroit and won all of them, although he struggled with his control Sunday. The right-hander walked four and exited after throwing 105 pitches in just five innings. He allowed two runs on five hits and fanned seven, most of them on sliders away.
“Well, his pitch count got up, and he was out of the game relatively early.” Detroit manager Brad Ausmus said. “But we just couldn’t wriggle any runs off him. We could work counts, we could work some walks, we had the first inning with the runners on base and scored the first two innings, but we just really couldn’t (do much).”
Alex Claudio went 1 1/3 scoreless innings, Sam Dyson tossed 1 2/3 shutout innings, and Keone Kela pitched a perfect ninth for his second career save and first of the year.
“Those three guys (were great),” Banister said. “Claudio has been solid, did a great job. The two right-handers, Dyson and Key (Kela), Dyson seemed to look like the only hard-hit ball was the (double) by (Miguel) Cabrera (in the seventh), but he was able to go back out and give us a three-out set in the eighth. And then Key coming in with the wipeout fastball and curveball.”
Dyson seemed to think on the field that Cabrera was stealing signs and relaying them to Tigers batters. After the game, he said the issue was cleared up on the field.
“I think it was just a misunderstanding,” Ausmus said. “Miggy wasn’t stealing signs. If he was stealing signs, he certainly wouldn’t be that blatant about it.
“Miggy was just trying to let the bench know he has a changeup, that’s all it was. It was a misunderstanding. He wasn’t stealing signs. Dyson, for whatever reason, thought he was.”
Detroit’s Matthew Boyd (2-4) gave up a dozen hits, including both Texas home runs, in 5 1/3 innings with no walks and three strikeouts.
“Yeah, he did have a lot of traffic,” Ausmus said. “And he was able to wiggle out of some of it, but the more guys you put on base, generally speaking, the more runs you’re going to end up giving up. That’s basically what happened.”
Napoli broke a 2-2 tie with one out in the fifth when he launched his 10th home run into the camera well in dead center field, some 440 feet from home plate.
Kozma gave the Rangers a 4-2 lead with his first home run since April 2, 2013, for St. Louis at Arizona, a high fly to left with one out in the sixth.
Texas tacked on a run in the ninth off reliever Blaine Hardy on an RBI double by Jonathan Lucroy.
Cabrera’s two-out line single to center following two walks gained Detroit a 2-2 tie in the second, but Darvish kept the Tigers at bay despite a lack of command.
Nomar Mazara tripled with one out in the second and scored on Robinson Chirinos’ single to right center, giving Texas a 2-1 edge.
The Rangers struck first with a run in the first. Elvis Andrus singled to short with one out, moved up on a groundout to first and scored on a single to right-center by Lucroy.
Ian Kinsler began the bottom of the first with his fourth homer of the season, but the Tigers couldn’t add on with the bases loaded and no outs.
A strikeout, a forceout at home and a flyout to right ended the threat after Kinsler tied Curtis Granderson for sixth all-time with the 42nd leadoff home run of his career.
Cabrera had three of Detroit’s seven hits.
Texas got multi-hit games from Delino DeShields, Elvis Andrus, Ryan Kua, Lucroy, Napoli and Kozma.
