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Historic Yu Darvish home run in Cincinnati sends Rangers off on possibly the season's most important stretch

CINCINNATI - The Rangers begin a two-week stretch Thursday that, in all likelihood, will ultimately determine the AL West race and potentially possession of home-field advantage all the way through the World Series.

It's a big stretch. A really big stretch.

Oh, and by the way, Yu Darvish homered Wednesday.

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Wait ... what?

Ok, before we get to the Indians, Mariners and Astros, a bit of history: Darvish hit a home run in the Rangers' wacky 6-5 win over Cincinnati. Well, he didn't just hit a home run. He destroyed a baseball. Drove it over the center field wall at Great American Ballpark, which is, like, so far away it's almost in Kentucky. The ball left the bat at 105 mph. It traveled 410 feet. It screamed as it whistled through the air. It was the first homer by a Rangers pitcher since Bobby Witt in 1997.

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Also, he hit it right-handed, which is interesting because the last time he hit, a month ago, he was swinging lefty.

"I started swinging right-handed four or five days ago and it felt good," Darvish said through an interpreter. "The ball came off the bat really well. I started thinking, 'Hey, am I stronger?' I thought, maybe I could get one."

Said manager Jeff Banister: "Oh, he told me he could do it. He reminded me after he got back to the dugout. The ball comes off his bat loud. He put a good swing on it. That's a big-boy home run."

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And now, back to our story, which is the deciding stretch in the AL races.

Over the next two weeks, the Rangers play 14 high-impact games. They begin a 10-game homestand Thursday with four games against Cleveland, which trails them by a game for the best record in the AL. After, it's three against second-place Seattle, which trails in the AL West race by 6.5 games, three against Houston, which still has a glimmer of hope at eight games back, and then four at Seattle. After that: Only three of the final 21 games are against a contender (Houston).

To use the manager's vernacular: This is big-boy baseball.

"This is a tough stretch against quality teams," Banister said. "We need to play good baseball. We have a chance to create separation or to allow them to get close. We need to protect our house and play good baseball."

It is not a mistake he repeated the need to "play good baseball."

The Rangers haven't really done that on the five-game road trip that ended Wednesday. The finale offered plenty of examples of what to - and not to - do over the key stretch:

DO: Take advantage of mistakes. The Rangers grabbed the lead with a three-run inning to end a 12-inning scoreless drought. A key to the inning was Joey Votto's misguided attempt to try and turn Jonathan Lucroy's grounder to no-man's land into a double play. Cincinnati got no outs on the play. Nomar Mazara followed with a three-run homer. It was his second home run of the road trip, but just his third in the last month.

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DO NOT: Play careless baseball. The Rangers twice gave up bases that led to runs with passive-aggressive defense. Rougned Odor was too passive on a grounder while playing the shift and allowed it to turn into a base hit; Elvis Andrus tried to throw out the Usain Bolt of baseball, Billy Hamilton, on a slow grounder and ended up throwing the ball into a camera well. The two unearned runs on Wednesday give the Rangers 45 for the season, third most in the AL.

"We have got to play cleaner defense," Banister said. "We need to record outs that are in front of us."

DO: Keep Jake Diekman, Matt Bush and Sam Dyson fresh. The trio pitched three innings, allowing only one walk, and needed just 32 pitches to in relief of an uncharacteristically wild Darvish (five walks). All three were working for just the second time each in the last week.

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If starters go deep into games, it allows Banister to deploy the bullpen as he wants to and to save other bodies for other days.

DO NOT: Waste opportunities. The Rangers entered the game hitting just .228 with runners in scoring position since the All-Star break. Mazara's homer and Adrian Beltre's eighth-inning tie-breaking double gave them a pair of big hits in run-scoring chances.

"We needed some feel good and a little momentum going back to our place," Banister said.

They got the feel good from Darvish's homer and the win.

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They got a lesson for the upcoming stretch in how the game was played.

The next two weeks of the Rangers' schedule will have huge impact on the AL West and AL playoff races. A look at the schedule:

Twitter: @Evan_P_Grant

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