Oakland Athletics at Texas Rangers

García has 3 homers, 2 doubles, 8 RBIs as Rangers rout A's

All three of García's homers were two-run shots, and his first double also scored two to give the 30-year-old Cuban slugger a career high for RBI to go with his first three-homer game.

García's final at-bat came against infielder Jace Peterson in the eighth. Because of position switches, Texas reliever Josh Sborz batted ahead of García and took three of four pitches for a strikeout.

The line-drive double down the left-field line from García could have scored Travis Jankowski, but he jogged to third, preserving Hall of Famer Ivan Rodriguez's club record of nine RBI in a game set in 1999.

“I was just looking for a certain pitch in a certain zone and wasn’t trying to do too much and overthink,” García said through an interpreter of his final two at-bats. “Just try to make good contact.”

García had the second three-homer game in the major leagues this season. Trayce Thompson did it for the Los Angeles Dodgers in a 10-1 win over Arizona on April 1.

Some in the crowd of 32,388 stood in anticipation in the seventh, when García had his first of two chances to tie the big league record of four homers in a game. He lined a two-run double to right-center for the first eight-RBI game by a Rangers player in 11 years.

Each of his homers went at least 400 feet, starting with a 432-foot drive into the second deck in left field off Japanese right-hander Shintaro Fujinami in the first inning.

García cleared the center-field wall on a 419-foot drive off reliever Adrián Martinez in the third. Texas’ cleanup hitter went deep off Martinez again in the fifth, 401 feet into the Oakland bullpen in left-center.

García has seven home runs and 28 RBI this season.

“I’ve seen him for the last two seasons continue to grow as a hitter, continue to get better and better,” A's manager Mark Kotsay said. “He’s a real threat in the middle of the lineup now.”

After the first homer, García was hit on the left arm by the first pitch from Fujinami in the second inning, a 97 mph fastball. Plate umpire Jordan Baker quickly stepped in front of García, who appeared upset but walked to first base without any words exchanged with the pitcher.

With the bases loaded, Josh Jung grounded a two-run single to left and Jonah Heim followed immediately with a two-run double to right-center.

Andrew Heaney's streak of 10 scoreless innings over two starts ended with Oakland's two-run first, but the Texas left-hander limited the damage with Aledmys Díaz's inning-ending double play.

Heaney (2-1) answered with five scoreless innings, allowing five hits, two walks and a hit batter with four strikeouts in six innings.

Fujinami (0-4) had improved in his two previous starts but matched the ugly numbers from his major league debut: eight runs in 2 1/3 innings.

The 29-year-old rookie gave up seven hits, walked three, hit a batter and threw two wild pitches as his ERA rose to 14.40. Fujinami has lost all four starts.

“I couldn’t throw strikes with the fastball tonight,” Fujinami said through an interpreter. “So I’ll make adjustments with my mechanics next time and try to do better.”

The A's, who lost for the eighth time in nine games, extended a franchise record with a 21st consecutive game to begin the season without a victory for a starter. Oakland starters are 0-10 while allowing 95 runs — all earned — in 95 1/3 innings.

“This is kind of a step backwards so we’ll dive into trying to build confidence in his fastball and his ability to throw it for strikes,” Kotsay said. “Continue to grind on our end and coach and hopefully turn this thing around for him.”

Ezequiel Duran hit his first homer for the Rangers, and Jesús Aguilar his second for the A's, who got a run-scoring single from Jordan Diaz and a sacrifice fly from Carlos Pérez for a 2-0 lead in the first.

Marcus Semien had two RBI singles for Texas.

UP NEXT

Texas ace Jacob deGrom (1-0, 3.48 ERA) is “full go,” according to manager Bruce Bochy, in the series finale. The right-hander was pulled as a precaution because of right wrist soreness after four hitless innings in the Rangers' 4-0 win at Kansas City on Monday. A's LHP Kyle Muller (0-1, 7.23) allowed 13 hits and six runs over four innings in his previous start, a 10-1 loss to the Chicago Cubs.

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