ARLINGTON, Texas — Nathaniel Lowe was hit by a pitch from Carson Fulmer with the bases loaded in the 13th inning, forcing home the winning run as the Texas Rangers outlasted the Los Angeles Angels 3-2 on Saturday night.
Lowe tied the score with a sacrifice fly in the eighth. Adolis García homered in the sixth for the Rangers (24-23), who won for the third time in 10 games. The defending World Series champions have never been under .500 since Bruce Bochy took over as manager before last season.
“It was a hard-fought win,” Bochy said. “Entertaining, the things that were happening. It’s good to get a win, but you’d like to do it a little bit easier.”
Taylor Ward and Jo Adell homered for the Angels, who went 0 for 18 with runners in scoring position — including 0 for 10 in extra innings. They left 11 on base overall.
Fulmer (0-2) gave up a leadoff single to pinch-hitter Ezequiel Duran in the 13th, sending automatic runner Travis Jankowksi from second base to third. Marcus Semien lined out to third, and the Angels intentionally walked Corey Seager to load the bases. That brought up Lowe, who was plunked by Fulmer’s next pitch.
In an 0-for-13 slump, Lowe took the moment in stride.
“Based on my recent success this last week, I was just kind of in the way,” he said. “I’m just kind of having a pretty slow stretch, but I was in the way at the right time at the end.”
The previous time Texas earned a walk-off win on a hit by pitch was August 2016, when Rougned Odor was plunked by Oakland reliever Marc Rzepcynski in the 10th.
Angels manager Ron Washington had no regrets about loading the bases by walking Seager, calling it a “very easy” decision.
“The winning run was at third base,” Washington said. “I wasn’t going to let Seager beat me.”
Washington was more frustrated by the Angels’ performance at the plate with runners in scoring position.
“We certainly put ourselves in position to have opportunities and we just didn’t get it done,” he said. “It’s tough when you go that far and have that many opportunities and you just don’t cash them in.”
Yerry Rodríguez (1-0) pitched two hitless innings for his first major league win. David Robertson kept the Angels scoreless in the 10th and 11th.
Texas trailed 2-1 in the eighth before Semien drew a one-out walk, advanced to third on Seager’s single and scored on a sacrifice fly by Lowe.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Rangers right-hander Kumar Rocker, the third overall pick in the 2022 amateur draft, threw a bullpen that came four days before the one-year anniversary of his Tommy John surgery. The team wanted to get a biomechanical update on Rocker via the motion capture system available on the game mound.
UP NEXT
RHP Michael Lorenzen (2-2, 3.75 ERA), who made 18 starts for the Angels in 2022, pitches Sunday for Texas against RHP Jose Soriano (1-4, 3.72) in the series finale.
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