The Texas Rangers scored nine runs while the Kansas City Royals scored one run.
After getting battered and bruised by leaguewide losers over the past couple of weeks, the Rangers donned their blood red tops with a sellout crowd decked out in replica Nolan Ryan bloody jerseys to witness an increasingly rare feat for Texas in 2026.
The Rangers came into tonight’s game having lost seven consecutive series-opening contests, with their lone series opener victory of the month coming on the first day of the month when they beat the Detroit Tigers on May 1 in a series they would eventually lose.
The Rangers drew first blood in the first inning in what would essentially become the story of the game. The Royals opened the game with a two-out double with a runner on but that runner had to halt at third base. Texas starter MacKenzie Gore got the last out to strand both runners in scoring position to keep KC off the board.
As we’re all well aware, securing a clean first inning has been a struggle for Texas this season but Gore getting out of danger helped to ignite the team for a crooked number in the bottom half of the inning.
Like Kansas City, the Rangers got a two-out double with a runner on base but that runner was Joc Pederson who led off the game with a walk. Pederson isn’t exactly swift these days so he too stayed at third base meaning it fell on Ezequiel Duran to deliver on the exact same situation that the Royals could not.
Much like with the top of the inning, where Texas has too often allowed early runs to start games with a deficit, two-out RBI situations have too often been wasted by the Rangers. However, the narratives continued to flip as Duran delivered with a two-out, two-run single that snowballed into an even bigger frame.
After Duran’s single, Evan Carter blooped a double toward the left field line and then Alejandro Osuna reached on an error to score Duran. Eventually Carter scored as well when Osuna attempted to steal second base and Royals’ catcher Salvador Perez threw the ball the ball away trying to throw him out.
After bloodying KC’s lip in the first, the Rangers tacked on two more each in the fifth and sixth innings with Brandon Nimmo hitting a two-run homer in the fifth and newcomer Nicky Lopez hitting just the eighth home run over his nearly 700-game big league career.
The dinger from the former Royals’ infielder was also of the two-run variety which gave Texas an 8-0 lead. In the top of the eighth, Pederson capped off the scoring for Texas with a solo dong of his own before the Royals prevented the shutout with a run in the ninth off Gavin Collyer when it was far too little and far too late.
Despite the fact that the Rangers went on to comfortably win by eight runs, a third first inning two-out hit by KC or the Rangers failing to cash in on their own two-out opportunity a half inning later could have easily altered the course of the evening.
Nevertheless, Texas did have themselves a rare charmed first inning and that fed into what would become an even rarer first game of a series win.
Player of the Game: The Rangers had ten hits and scored nine runs, hit three home runs, and saw everyone in the lineup reach base with only Danny Jansen failing to get at least one hit.
However, Gore tossing 6.1 innings of scoreless ball on just four hits and a walk continued a solid stretch for the left-hander as May creeps to a close. Gore, one of the league’s top strikeout artists, only had three strikeouts tonight but 63 strikes in his 99 pitches allowed him to pitch beyond the sixth inning for just the second time this season.
Up Next: The Rangers and Royals play an afternoon affair with RHP Kumar Rocker making the start for Texas against RHP Seth Lugo for Kansas City.
The first pitch of the second game of this series on Saturday is scheduled for 3:05 pm CDT and will be aired on the Rangers Sports Network as well as nationally on FS1.
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