Rangers outslug White Sox, 10-6
ARLINGTON, Texas — Yu Darvish overcame a shaky start for his fifth victory in April and the Texas Rangers backed him with plenty of big hits Tuesday night in a 10-6 win over the Chicago White Sox.
Darvish (5-1) struck out nine in six innings, but the game was tied when he threw the last of his 108 pitches.
Texas scored six times in the sixth to break it open. Mitch Moreland, who had three hits, delivered a go-ahead double and Adrian Beltre capped the burst with a two-run homer. The bases were loaded when Beltre got to the plate before two wild pitches by Nate Jones allowed two runs.
Nelson Cruz and Jeff Baker homered on consecutive pitches in the fourth off White Sox starter Jose Quintana. Texas scored twice more in the fifth when Ian Kinsler had his fifth double in five games, driving in a run before he scored on a single by Elvis Andrus.
Adam Dunn hit his sixth homer of the season for Chicago. Dewayne Wise, who entered in an 0-for-15 slide, was 4 for 4 with a home run after being a late addition to the lineup for Jordan Danks, who was scratched because of bursa sac inflammation behind the right knee.
The last Texas pitchers to win five games in April were Aaron Sele and Rick Helling in 1998. Darvish leads the majors with 58 strikeouts in 38 2-3 innings.
Darvish had thrown 18 consecutive scoreless innings before the White Sox, whose .229 batting average coming into the game was tied for the worst in the AL, scored twice and had four hits only six batters into the game. Darvish had allowed three hits in each of his three previous starts.
Chicago got even at 4 with two outs in the sixth when Wise hit a two-run homer, the first home run off Darvish this season. That came a batter after Darvish failed to get his foot down on first base to complete what would have been an inning-ending double play.
Moreland fielded Hector Gimenez’s grounder to first and threw to second. Darvish took shortstop Elvis Andrus’ relay throw and caught the ball in time for the out, but he wasn’t on the base and unsuccessfully reached back to try to touch it with his foot.
Darvish immediately patted his chest with his hand, acknowledging his mistake, and even smiled. A few seconds later, he hung a slow breaking pitch over the center of the plate to Wise. Darvish then struck out Alejandro De Aza to end the inning.
Geovany Soto drew a one-out walk in the sixth off reliever Matt Lindstrom (1-2). Moreland’s double made it 5-4, and he scored on a single by Kinsler.
NOTES: Quintana allowed four runs and eight hits in five innings. ... Moreland is hitting .429 (15 for 35) his last nine games. ... 3B Mike Olt, who made his major league debut with the Rangers last year and is one of the team’s top prospects at Triple-A Round Rock, hasn’t played since Thursday after saying he was having vision problems. General manager Jon Daniels said Olt was visiting doctors in the Arlington area Tuesday. Olt is hitting only .139 this season, and his struggles could be related to the unspecified issues with his eyesight.