Holt’s clutch heroics sting former team

A day after the Rangers set the record for the most hits that a Texas team has put together at the young Globe Life Field with 13, it wasn’t about how many hits the club put together that was key, but rather when those hits came in Sunday’s 5-3 win.

With the Rangers looking for a series win against Boston, it was former Red Sox third baseman Brock Holt who delivered the key hit for Texas.

With the game tied at 3 in the bottom of the eighth, Holt delivered an RBI single that brought home both David Dahl and Isiah-Kiner Falefa to give his team the push it needed to win the game and the series.

Despite the hit coming against the club with whom he spent seven years, Holt said all that matters is that he was able to help his team get the win.

“I mean it was cool,” Holt said. “It would have been cool, regardless. In that situation to get a hit to put your team on top going into the ninth inning with the way Ian [Kennedy] has been throwing the ball. You know we feel like if we have a lead and he comes in, it's pretty much game over. So, I mean obviously the Red Sox thing, it's cool, but I mean it would have felt good regardless of who it was.”

In his first series against the Red Sox as a Ranger, Holt went 3-for-7 with two RBIs in the two games in which he appeared.

The big hit on Sunday earned Holt praise from the visitors’ clubhouse.

“He’s a championship-caliber player, and he’s done it before,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “He put a good swing on a fastball up, and he found green. He’s a good player.”

Holt’s former teammate Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts added that playing against him was tough considering how he still hopes for Holt to be successful even not as teammates.

“You always kind of root for someone like that, a guy you’re pretty close with, and you have nothing but good things to say about him,” Bogaerts said. “You wish he doesn’t do as good against us. It stung. It stung, especially coming from him, but he’s a good player, man. I know definitely he probably wanted that at-bat and to be clutch in that situation. He put a good swing on it.”

Texas came into the eighth inning trailing, 3-2, after Kiner-Falefa brought his club within one run with a seventh-inning solo home run.

Dahl, who was hitting .136 over his previous seven games, delivered the game-tying single in the eighth that brought in Nate Lowe, who walked and stole second base to start the late-game rally.

With the Rangers able to score runs on the long ball and through manufacturing runs on the basepaths, Holt said any way they can push across runs is key.

“Nate [Lowe] stole a big bag. Kiner with the homer,” Holt said. “Any way we can we can put a run on the board is huge, and today we were able to put more on than the other team and that's what we're trying to do every day.”

Securing the series win with the help of Holt’s single lifted the Rangers to their first successful homestand of the season after they went 4-3 against the Angels and the Red Sox.

Rangers manager Chris Woodward, who was ejected in the sixth inning, said the series win can be a stepping stone for his club.

“It's hard to win a four-game series against any team, let alone a team that's playing as well as the Red Sox have been,” Woodward said. “So that should give us a huge momentum boost.”