59-76 - Rangers are winners once more with 4-3 victory over Astros

The Texas Rangers scored four runs while the Houston Astros scored three runs.

They did it! They won a game!

Truth be told, when the Rangers squandered an early 3-0 lead, as the Astros peckaway theory’d themselves to a 3-3 tie after the 4th, I was all but certain that Texas was on their way to a tenth loss in a row. Who could blame me?

But the Astros never scored again and the Rangers plated the eventual winning run on a wild pitch to knock Houston starter Framber Valdez out of the game.

From there, it was a pretty tense battle with the bullpen coming up large for Texas as they collected a cathartic one-run win.

Player of the Game: Taylor Hearn deserves a lot of credit just for surviving the return to the bullpen to become a weapon and for tonight where he took over for Glenn Otto to begin the 5th inning and stopped Houston’s run of three consecutive innings with a run scored on his way to two shutout innings and a win.

Overall, a quartet of Hearn, Jesus Tinoco, Matt Moore, and Jose Leclerc combined to keep the Astros off the board for the final five innings to beat the streak.

Up Next: The Rangers will try to get a winning streak started in the series finale with LHP Cole Ragans making his return for Texas opposite RHP Cristian Javier for Houston.

Wednesday evening’s first pitch from Minute Maid Park is scheduled for 7:10 pm CDT.