Adolis Garcia met a walk-off two-run Homer at the bottom of the ninth round to lift Texas Rangers to a 4-3 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday afternoon in the middle of a three-game Interleague series in Arlington, Texas.
Garcia’s blast over the left field wall came from Dodgers Kirby Yates – which was Rangers’ closer to 2024 – and followed a dumble of Josh Smith. The home run was Garcia’s fourth season, and it made a winner of Jacob Webb (2-0), the third Kanden for Texas.
Yates (1-1) had its first blown rescue of the year. Six players had one hit each for Los Angeles, who had a winning line with four games.
Texas only managed five hits but leveled the series while won for the fourth time in five matches.
Shohei Ohtani missed his second straight game while he was on the paternity list. His wife gave birth to a daughter, it was announced on Saturday.
Both starters – Roki Sasaki for Los Angeles and Nathan Eovaldi for Texas – hit well enough to win, but an error by Eovaldi made the difference in leaving Dodger’s lead.
Sasaki allowed two runs on two hits over a career-high six rounds while he knocked out four and went three. Eovaldi gave up three runs (two earned) while spreading five hits and knocked out seven without a walk.
Rangers hit first and went up 2-0 on Kyle Higashioka’s two-run home run at the bottom of the third round. The blasting, which also plated Dustin Harris, who had gone to start the inning, was just out of reach of jumping Los Angeles left fielder Michael Conforto and was the first hit outside Sasaki.
Dodgers wasted some time answering, binding the game in the fourth when Freddie Freeman ripped a two-run Homer down to the right-wing line who also got Mookie Betts, who had taken him in front of him.
After a foundation, Conforto hit and went to others when Eovaldi’s pickoff throw to the first base hit him in the back and rolled away. Max Muncy followed a double to the right center field gap that enabled Conforto to trot home and give Los Angeles a 3-2 lead.
None of the law threatened when they entered their respective bulls. Sasaki was followed to the hill by Jack Dreyer (one inning), Evan Phillips (two -thirds of an inning, two strikes and one single) and Alex Vesia (one -third of an inning) before Yates.
Robert Garcia beat the seventh for Texas and the web retired all six beats he met during the last two rounds.
The series between the last two World Series champions ends Sunday afternoon.
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