The Rangers completed a three-game sweep and highly successful 10-game road trip with a 5-4 come-from-behind win Sunday against the Cardinals at Busch Stadium. The Rangers went 8-2 on the trip and have won a season-high six consecutive games. Texas is 20-5 since May 24. The Rangers have 22 comeback wins, the most in the majors.
Pitching: Martin Perez allowed four runs on eight hits and three walks in 5 1/3 innings. Stephen Piscotty homered to center in the second to tie it at 1-1. In the third, Mike Leake scored on a sacrifice fly by Matt Holliday to give the Cardinals a 2-1 lead.
In the fourth, Shin-Soo Choo misplayed Tommy Pham’s hard-hit one-hopper and it rolled to the wall in right. Choo made a good throw to Rougned Odor who fired to third to get Pham. The Rangers had to challenge the call, which was safe on the field, and replays showed Adrian Beltre clearly tagged Pham before his foot hit the bag. The play ended the inning. In the sixth, the Cardinals scored twice to take a 4-3 lead. Holliday homered to tie it at 3-3 and after Perez loaded the bases with two walks and a single, reliever Tony Barnette, after striking out Matt Adams, walked Eric Fryer on four pitches to push St. Louis ahead 4-3. Matt Bush pitched a perfect eighth and Sam Dyson earned his 13th save in the ninth.
Hitting: In the first, Ian Desmond hustled to beat a double play at first, stole second and advanced to third when the shortstop didn’t handle the throw. Desmond scored on Nomar Mazara’s sacrifice fly to center to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead. Mitch Moreland’s two-out homer to deep right field tied it at 2-2 in the fourth. In the sixth, Mazara homered to right to give the Rangers a 3-2 lead.
With two outs and the bases loaded in the eighth, Jurickson Profar came off the bench to deliver a two-run single to give the Rangers a 5-4 lead.
Notables: Moreland’s homer was estimated at 456 feet, tied for the longest homer by an opposing player at the current Busch Stadium’s history ... Mazara’s sac fly in the first was his sixth this season, tied for the most in the A.L. with the White Sox’s Jose Abreu ... Texas leads the A.L. with 27 sac flies ... A 5-4-3 double play in the first inning is the 18th Perez has induced ... 48,897 was the announced attendance, the 11th sellout at Busch Stadium in 2016 ... Profar’s two-run pinch-hit in the eighth is the first multi-RBI pinch hit for a Rangers player since Moreland had a two-run single on June 19, 2015 against the White Sox ... It’s the Rangers’ second pinch hit of the season ... club is now 2 for 15.
Stefan Stevenson: 817-390-7760, @StevensonFWST
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