Texas Rangers were all about the bounce-back in win against Mariners

ARLINGTON - It was the picture perfect illustration of the Rangers’ enigmatic April offense.

In the second inning Wednesday, Wyatt Langford, still searching for his first major league homer, bashed a ball off the top of the wall in right center. Just missed it. Then, chugging around second towards a triple, he fell flat on his face. Was thrown out trying to scamper back to second. So close and yet so far.

The harder they ran, the harder they fell.

All along, though, manager Bruce Bochy maintained that this, too, would pass. Offense is too good. You know what: Maybe he’s right. Maybe it actually started to pass Wednesday. Despite the fall, the Rangers sprung back up and took a 5-1 win over Seattle. Even barged back into first place in the AL West, if we’re gonna track that 25 games into the season.

“All you can do is stay behind these guys,” Bochy said before the game. “We went through our ups and downs last year. And they bounced back.”

The only potential concern: Corey Seager left the game in the eighth inning after being hit by a pitch in the left shin. It was diagnosed as shin contusion.

Bochy’s medical explanation: “It swelled up pretty good and pretty quickly.” Seager missed three games and was limited to DH for three more in 2022 after a similar bruise.

Wednesday’s win had that bounce-back kind of feel. As usual, it started with Adolis García, who is having a month. He homered and the Rangers offense followed. Two pitches later Evan Carter, the other half of the Rangers rookie duo, homered to right.

Turned out to be a fine night for the rookies, even with the stumble. Langford reached base all four times up. Even made it around the bases just fine for a key sixth-inning run. The rookies combined to reach six times in eight plate appearances.

“I feel like we just have to score one run and then we will score bunches,” said catcher Jonah Heim, who picked a 1-2 curveball off his shoe-tops to drive the ball into the right field corner on which Langford scored.  “Adolis has led us all season.”

On Wednesday, they did a better job of following his lead.

The García homer snapped a 25-inning home scoreless streak that dated back two full weeks. It was the longest home scoreless drought since the team moved into Globe Life Field. Though, for a moment, nobody was quite sure what had happened.

García’s fourth inning drive to center field arrived at the wall just as Julio Rodriguez did. The center fielder didn’t leap. The ball appeared to hit his glove and then Rodriguez fell to the warning track still holding the glove up. Nobody moved. García stopped at first and waited, thinking he was actually out.

Only after Rodriguez got up and made no move to pull the ball from his glove did the crowd realize it had hit off his glove and landed over the fence. It was maybe the most-delayed fireworks salvo in Globe Life Field history. As he rounded second, García, now with seven homers and 23 RBIs, shouted and gestured to the outfielder.

“I joked with him,” García said. “I told him not to jump at the wall. I thought he caught it. It was fun.”

Said Bochy: “It was a good moment for us when we realized [Rodriguez] didn’t have the ball.

The next one, though, took no time at all. Two pitches later Carter, in 3-for-27 stretch, drove a ball to right about which there was no doubt. It gave the Rangers the lead. It was the first time the team hit back-to-back homers this season.

“Tonight was a shot in the arm,” Bochy acknowledged. “We needed it. It was good to see Evan and Wyatt have big days. But we also made hard outs and had good at-bats. It was a good day.”

But Bochy also couldn’t resist. Nothing endears a player to his teammates quite the way a face-plant does, providing everything works out in the end. Langford might have been embarrassed, but wasn’t hurt. And the Rangers won.

“That was a pretty good one,” he said of Langford’s tumble. “We’ll make sure he knows ‘left-right-left’.”

It ended up being that kind of night.

Even the stumbles got a laugh.

Find more Rangers coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.

Click or tap here to sign up for our Rangers newsletter.