Rangers 7-0 at Home for First Time at LinesMaker.com

Rangers 7–0 at Home for First Time

ARLINGTON, Texas —C.J. Wil­son is start­ing to feel like him­self again. So are the top two hit­ters in the Texas Rangers’ lineup.

Wil­son struck out nine in seven strong innings while Ian Kinsler and Elvis Andrus both snapped out of extended slumps as the Rangers returned home with a 7–1 vic­tory over the AL West rival Los Ange­les Angels on Mon­day night.

“He made pitches when he had to, kept them off bal­ance,” man­ager Ron Wash­ing­ton said about Wil­son, before really break­ing out a smile when asked about the duo at the top of the bat­ting order.

“They’re pretty good play­ers. We love them when they’re doing well. We have to stick with them when things aren’t going right,” he added. “It’s only April. In two or three days, those num­bers you see can change pretty drastically.”

Kinsler, who entered hit­ting .170, snapped an 0-for-18 slide with a pair of extra-base hits before scor­ing on a sui­cide squeeze by Andrus, who was hit­ting. 176 and in a 4-for-39 slide before his three hits.

“It was def­i­nitely a good night,” Kinsler said.

Adrian Bel­tre home­red for the sec­ond straight night and Mitch More­land drove in three runs for the Rangers, who were back from a nine-game road trip after los­ing four of five. They have started a sea­son with seven con­sec­u­tive home vic­to­ries for the first time.

The Angels had won five in a row with some solid pitch­ing per­for­mances to enter the three-game series tied with Texas atop the divi­sion at 10–5. Then Ervin San­tana (0–2) ran into a lit­tle bit of trouble.

Moreland’s two-out, two-run sin­gle in the fourth put the Rangers ahead to stay. Texas added four runs in the fifth, includ­ing Beltre’s three-run homer to straight­away center.

Kinsler started the fifth with a triple into the left-field cor­ner that ric­o­cheted past Ver­non Wells. Andrus then bunted with Kinsler charg­ing home and was cred­ited with a sin­gle when San­tana threw late and high to first base.

“I kind of slowed down a lit­tle bit head­ing into sec­ond base, saw he was hav­ing trou­ble with the ball and I was able to pick it back up and get into third base,” Kinsler said. “Elvis is such a good bunter, he does such a good job get­ting the bat on the ball some­how. It makes Wash very con­fi­dent to be able to put that play on and it worked well.”

Michael Young fol­lowed with a sin­gle before Beltre’s fifth home run of the sea­son chased Santana.

“It was a slider and he dug down and got it,” Angels man­ager Mike Scios­cia said. “It wasn’t that bad a pitch.”

Angels pitch­ers allowed only 10 runs dur­ing the five-game win­ning streak, a span when the starters had a 1.98 ERA.

San­tana struck out three and walked two while giv­ing up 10 hits in four-plus innings. He is 11–8 in 22 career starts against the Rangers, his most against any team.

“I don’t think over­all he was locked in, but he wasn’t far off,” Scios­cia said. “Those guys beat us today. We didn’t exe­cute some things on the mound and at the plate, but we’re not that far off.”

Wil­son (2–0) was already over 100 pitches when he gave up three con­sec­u­tive two-out sin­gles in the sev­enth, the last to Howie Kendrick for the Angels’ only run. The crafty left-hander got a rous­ing ova­tion from the crowd when walk­ing to the dugout after he got Bobby Abreu on an inning-ending flyball.

Wil­son scat­tered nine hits. His only walk was to Abreu in the first before Torii Hunter grounded into a dou­ble play.

“I felt a lit­tle bit more myself. I still don’t feel like I’m all the way back to where I want to be yet,” Wil­son said. “I ended up throw­ing a ton of pitches. … I was get­ting ahead of a lot of guys, but not able to put away everybody.”

NOTES: Bel­tre has four homers in his nine-game hit­ting streak. He also had his fourth game this sea­son with at least three RBIs. … Kinsler got his first hit in a week with a two-out dou­ble in the third. He was thrown out try­ing to score on a sin­gle by Andrus. … Hunter was in a 2-for-30 slide before a bloop sin­gle in the eighth that popped out of the glove of a leap­ing Kinsler at 2B. … Rangers C Mike Napoli, who had been in the Angels’ orga­ni­za­tion the past 11 years since they drafted him in 2000, played his first game against them. He was 1 for 3 with a bloop dou­ble on a checked swing. … Angels INF Erick Aybar, out since April 3 because of a left oblique strain, is expected to rejoin the team for the series finale Wednesday.

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