60-79 - Behind steady Perez, Rangers take finale over Blue Jays 4-1

The Texas Rangers scored four runs while the Toronto Blue Jays scored one run.

Despite things becoming more morose in and around The Shed as another Rangers season circled the drain, it’s worth noting that, by winning today’s finale over the Blue Jays, Texas has equaled last season’s win total with 23 games remaining.

Now, obviously, this isn’t anything to celebrate but it does shine a light on the fact that while this season didn’t reach the maybe-if-everything-breaks-right-they-make-the-wild-card goal, it hasn’t been as dreadful has last season’s edition.

There’s sparks of life on display up and down the lineup (today, Adolis Garcia and Leody Taveras homered and Nathaniel Lowe had three hits) and hope on the farm and the win total shows a team that is making the incremental progress that was expected, even if it hasn’t been as much as we might have hoped.

Player of the Game: If there were any doubts that Martin Perez was a one half wonder in his career year, he’s silenced that with a run of impressive starts in the second half.

Today Perez went six innings and allowed just one run on six hits, two walks, and seven strikeouts as he lowered his season ERA to 2.77 and pick up his 11 win in 60 total for the team this season.

Up Next: The Rangers will take part in the weirdest part of their weird lockout schedule with a day trip to Miami for a doubleheader before returning to Texas to finish their homestand. Expect to see Glenn Otto and Jon Gray make starts for the Rangers tomorrow against pitchers to be named for the Marlins.

Game 1 from loanDepot park is scheduled for 12:10 pm CDT with Game 2 to follow at 6:10 pm CDT.