Rangers beat Rays 7-1 for Wild Card Series sweep behind Garcia and Carter home runs
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Two years after losing 102 games, the resilient Texas Rangers are savoring a journey that’s transformed them into a playoff team.
“It’s all about bouncing back, dealing with the tough times. You know you’re going to have them,” manager Bruce Bochy said Wednesday after the Rangers beat the Tampa Bay Rays 7-1 to finish a two-game AL Wild Card Series sweep.
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“What’s important is how you handle it, and thse guys have handled it so well,” Bochy added. “I think we were counted out earlier in the season or late August … but what a job they did to bounce back and to be in this position.”
The Rangers rode a rollercoaster of emotions while losing three of four games at Seattle and letting the AL West division title slip away on the final day of the regular season. Instead of returning home with a first-round playoff bye, Texas was rewarded with a cross-country flight to Florida.
“We had to fly to fly right over Dallas, so that could have been really a downer for the club,” said Bochy, a first-year manager with Texas after winning three titles with San Francisco. “They reset, refocused, and just put together two of the best games back to back that we probably have had all year when you look at the pitching, the offense, the defense — everything we knew we had to do to beat a club like Tampa.”
The next stop is Baltimore, where the Rangers begin a Division Series against the AL East champion Orioles on Saturday.
Adolis Garcia and Evan Carter, a 20-year-old rookie who became the second-youngest postseason player in franchise history, homered off Zach Eflin, a 16-game winner unable to save Tampa Bay’s season.
Nathan Eovaldi gave Texas an outstanding pitching performance. The Rays’ scoreless streak reached 33 innings, one shy of the postseason record held by the 1966-74 Los Angeles Dodgers, before Curtis Mead’s RBI single in the seventh.
Texas won a postseason series for the first time since 2011, when the Rangers reached the World Series before losing to St. Louis.
