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Season record: 22-27
Week 8 record: 4-3
Series record: 7-8
If not for Adolis Garcia, this would’ve been a losing week for the Rangers, once again, and the sting of being no hit, once again, might have lasted longer.
Well thank God for Adolis Garcia who very quickly put that God awful Yankees series far in the rearview mirror and quite literally gave the Rangers a sweep of the in-state rival Houston Astros.
Garcia went 5-for-15 with eight RBIs against the Astros this weekend, with three home runs, two in Saturday’s game. Notably, he hit the walk-off three-run home run in Friday’s game and then the walk-off in-field hit in Sunday’s game. But his offense in Saturday’s game was just as clutch.
His first home run made it just a one run game, his second tied it.
He’s now tied for first in the A.L., second in the Majors, with Shohei Ohtani with homers. Ronald Acuña Jr. has 15.
This three game sweep of Houston is the first time the Rangers have swept them at home since 2016. Their last sweep of the Astros was July 2018 in Houston.
The Rangers are now in Anaheim for a quick two game series that starts tomorrow. They’ll face Andrew Heaney on Tuesday and Griffin Canning on Wednesday.
Heaney went just three innings in his last start versus the Cleveland Indians, and he hasn’t had that great of a season overall. He has a 5.31 ERA and 1.26 WHIP in eight starts with 39 innings pitched.
Canning hasn’t faired well this season either, he’s had a bit of a rollercoaster when it comes to innings pitcher per game. Pitching three innings in one start then stringing together a few starts of at least five innings before repeating the cycle. His last start against the Minnesota Twins was just three innings. He has a 5.56 ERA and 1.50 WHIP in his eight games, seven of which were starts.
The Rangers don’t have a starter listed for Wednesday but Tuesday’s starter will be Hyeon-Jong Yang. This will be his second appearance against the Angels, the first start, but that relief outing was 4.1 innings in his MLB debut and he gave up two runs on five hits.