The Texas Rangers will begin play Tuesday night still tied for second place in the American League West.
However, they will do so in far better spirits than they could have imagined going into the ninth inning Monday night.
The Rangers will look to build off their rare ninth-inning comeback when they visit the New York Mets in the middle game of a three-game series on Tuesday.
Texas’ Andrew Heaney (9-6, 4.34 ERA) is slated to start against Jose Quintana (1-5, 3.73) in a battle of left-handers.
The Rangers won for just the second time in 11 games on Monday when Nathaniel Lowe delivered the go-ahead, two-run single with two outs in the ninth inning to propel Texas to a 4-3 victory.
The Rangers hadn’t won a game in which they trailed after eight innings since June 16, 2022, when they scored three times in the ninth to beat the Detroit Tigers 3-1.
The comeback on Monday wasn’t enough to vault the Rangers back into first place. Texas and the Houston Astros remain one game behind the Seattle Mariners, who beat the Oakland Athletics 7-0.
However, the victory provided a much-needed confidence boost for the Rangers, who are looking to recapture the form that allowed them to occupy first place for 111 consecutive days before a recent stumble. The Rangers opened August on a 12-2 run before going on a 1-9 skid ahead of their arrival in New York.
“You’re really hoping that this gets some momentum built up and we start being the club that we were earlier,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said. “It’s great for the team. They’ve been through a lot. Nobody likes to go through this. Trust me, they don’t.”
The loss continued a trying season for the Mets, who have been under .500 every day since June 6 and dealt Max Scherzer to the Rangers on July 30 as part of an overhaul at the trade deadline. New York has scored three runs or less in each of the past six games, a span in which it is 1-5.
The Rangers’ ninth-inning rally cost Tylor Megill the win on a night in which he authored the second straight impressive outing by a homegrown Mets pitcher. Megill gave up one run over six innings after David Peterson limited the Los Angeles Angels to one run in seven innings in a 3-2 victory on Sunday.
“We had a really good outing from Tylor,” Mets manager Buck Showalter said. “Just one pitch away, but that’s why (the Rangers are) a good team. We were challenged to hold them down that long.”
Heaney didn’t factor into the decision on Thursday, when he allowed three runs over 4 1/3 innings as the Rangers fell 7-5 to the Minnesota Twins. He is 0-1 with a 2.03 ERA in four career games (two starts) against the Mets.
Quintana took a defeat on Wednesday after giving up five runs over 5 1/3 innings in the Mets’ 7-0 loss to the Atlanta Braves. He is 2-2 with a 3.81 ERA in 10 games (eight starts) against the Rangers.
–Field Level Media