Odor homers twice, Gomez hits slam as Rangers rout Mariners

Hernandez (9-5) matched a season high by allowing six runs in his shortest outing, coming out after four innings in his first loss since May 27.

“No, I felt good”, he said. “I made a couple of mistakes”.

Francisco Cervelli singled home Starling Marte from third against Chicago closer Aroldis Chapman with two outs in the ninth to trim the lead to one run. Perez, 1-6 with a 6.30 ERA in his last 10 starts, moved to 8-2 this season at home. “We’re just going to try to do the same thing the next game”. Who knew then it was a harbinger of an all-phase collapse?

“It was a rough trip”, manager Scott Servais said. “No doubt. Very disappointing. Off day tomorrow, we’ll come back and bring the energy that we need to have to get out and play”.

After sinking Seattle to third in the AL West, the division-leading Rangers get three at home against second-place Houston, which comes in a lot hotter than the Mariners but still 8 1/2 games back.

The win was the fourth straight for the Rockies, one shy of their season high.

Perez threw six shutout innings, while striking out four. Hernandez walked four and all scored.

Said Jeff Banister after the game: “I think the biggest pitch of the night for [Odor] was laying off the slider right before [the home run]”. He’s very good at it. He hopes to make his next start in six days.

“It started to lift up again, same as previous year, but not as bad”, he said. “In the at-bat before, I was swinging at pitches down”.

There was more, of course. Tom Koehler (9-10) got the loss. But Jonathan Lucroy picked Odor up and knocked Beltre in with a two-out RBI single. Up 7-6 and with only Diaz, Pat Venditte and Arquimedes Caminero remaining in the bullpen, Servais made a decision to go to his best reliever to get the final six outs.

The right-hander was the sixth pitcher used by Seattle, including three in the seventh when Texas scored twice to tie the game at 6.

It was, pretty much, a fiasco, that enabled the Rangers to complete a three-game sweep.

Seattle Mariners’ James Paxton works against the Texas Rangers in the first inning of a baseball game, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016, in Arlington, Texas.

The Mariners avoided a shutout on Kyle Seager’s one-out homer in the eighth inning against Tony Barnette. Leonys Martin greeted reliever Alex Claudio with another run-scoring single, though the lefty worked 2 2-3 scoreless innings.

Texas led 1-0 when it blew the game open with a five-run fourth inning. During that stretch, Seager is hitting.346 with seven extra-base hits and 10 walks.

The Rangers scored on a ground-ball out in the third (1-0), then unloaded on King Felix in the fourth, the big blow a grand slam by newly acquired LF Carlos Gomez on an 86 miles per hour change-up that caught the inner half of the plate. At that point, it was time to reach for the salt and lime. Instead of there being runners on first and third with one out, Beltre was left on third by himself. Andrus tried to apologize, but Lee, who had three hits, didn’t look pleased.

PLUS: Dae-Ho Lee had three of the Mariners’ eight hits…one small positive for Felix Hernandez: his three strikeouts boosted his career total to 282 against the Rangers. That’s the most in history for any pitcher against Texas. Roger Clemens (1984-2003) and Mickey Lolich (1963-75) had 281. Not that it matters, but the third-place Mariners, who allowed a season high in runs, fell 11.5 games back of Texas in the AL West and 4.5 in arrears of Baltimore for the second wild card. The other slam also was against Seattle on July 17 when he was still with Astros. “You’ve got to put it behind us”.

6 Grand slams allowed by Felix Hernandez in his career. The Mariners finished 2-7 this season at Globe Life Park after winning two of the first three.