35-54 - Rangers lose impromptu home run derby to A’s 8-4 in 11

The Texas Rangers scored four runs but the Oakland Athletics scored eight runs after 11.

Mike Foltynewicz came into today’s game as the only starter in the league averaging over two dongs allowed per nine innings and today he allowed three solo home runs to Oakland.

Folty’s 24 dingers allowed leads the league and if he could have kept it to 23, perhaps things could have turned out differently today as the Rangers took an early 2-0 lead with their own two solo home runs off of A’s starter James Kaprielian via the bats of Adolis Garcia and Joey Gallo.

A half inning after the Rangers’ power display, Folty gave up two long dingers to cough up the lead before a Jed Lowrie solo shot in the top of the fourth gave Oakland a lead that they held onto until the Rangers squeaked out a run via a Jonah Heim RBI single in the bottom of the eighth to at least take Folty off the hook for a loss.

The bummer for Foltynewicz is that he actually tossed a pretty good game that could have been good enough for a win. Call it the Colby Lewis special as the only blemishes on his ledger were the solo home runs. Overall Folty went 6 ¹⁄₃ innings and allowed the three runs on five hits, zero walks, and six Ks.

With the scored tied after nine, the Rangers and A’s traded zombie runs on, ironically after all of the early home runs, balls that didn’t leave the infield in the tenth before the wheels came off for Spencer Patton and the Rangers in the eleventh as Oakland plated four runs — including one final dong, a two-run shot by Stephen Piscotty — to put this one out of reach.

The Rangers will regroup and go for the series win in the rubber match in the first half finale tomorrow afternoon.

Player(s) of the Game: The All-Star outfielders for the Rangers went back-to-back in the first inning.

Gallo also worked a couple of free passes and was walked intentionally to run his league-leading BB rate to over 20 percent (20.5%) and move his OBP to .402, which is good enough for tied for third best in baseball.

Up Next: The final game of the season’s first half will see LHP Kolby Allard take the mound for Texas against RHP Chris Bassitt for Oakland. The first pitch in Sunday’s series finale from The Shed is scheduled for 1:35 pm CT.