Seager smacks 2 homers, continues home dominance

ARLINGTON -- With the way Corey Seager was swinging the bat Tuesday night, Rangers manager Chris Woodward thought his shortstop could have hit four home runs.

Instead, Seager had to settle for two. The 28-year-old launched his fifth and sixth homers of the season to propel the Rangers to a 6-4 win over the Royals at Globe Life Field. It was the shortstop’s first multi-homer game of the season and the 11th of his career.

“That third swing especially was pretty good,” Woodward joked. “One thing about Corey though is that he's going to keep coming at you. Mentality wise, he just doesn’t give in. Every single pitch, he’s trying to do damage. He's trying to hit the ball as hard as he can. He has a game plan when he goes up there. It’s really tough to pitch to him because you know if you start with a fastball down the middle, he's taking a rip at it.”

Seager has been known to thrive in the Rangers’ new ballpark, and not just in 2022. While he’s had 11 multi-homer games in his career, one of the most notable was on Oct. 16, 2020 in Game 5 of the of the National League Championship Series against the Braves at Globe Life Field, where he powered the Dodgers to a win and a World Series bid.

Seager has now hit five home runs over his last five games at home, joining Joey Gallo as the second hitter to ever hit five or more homers over a five-game span at Globe Life Field since it opened in 2020. All six of Seager’s home runs this season have come at home, helping put together an OPS of 1.015 at Globe Life Field.

The return to Texas was a nice turnaround for Seager after a long East Coast road trip, where he went just 1-for-19 against the Phillies and Yankees.

After a hot start to the season -- he hit .310/.356/.405 through the first 10 games -- Seager cooled off briefly with only three hits over his past six games entering Tuesday. He was 0-for-his-last-16 going into the game, but finished his night against the Royals 2-for-3 (both solo homers) with a walk.

“It's just nice to see him get some results, obviously with a few homers,” Woodward said. “We needed that right now.”

“I think it was just a good offensive night all around,” Seager added. “We had some chances in New York and never felt like we got that big hit. So to kind of get out there and get on the board early and take some walks, get some big hits, it kind of really jump-started us.”

Seager’s performance was just part of the Rangers' resurgent offense, which scored just five runs over the three-game set against the Yankees this past weekend. In the win over the Royals, Texas jumped out early to score three in the first inning and tacked on one more in the third, fourth and sixth.

Rangers starting pitcher Martín Pérez, who tossed 6 1/3 innings and allowed only one earned run, said the offense’s ability to jump out early and score runs made him want to pitch that much better throughout the game.

With six runs and 10 hits, it was the highest total in both categories the Rangers had recorded since logging seven runs and 11 hits against the Braves on May 1.

“We just have to get back to passing the baton,” Seager said. “It's the next man up mentality. You don't always have to get a hit. You can move a runner and give it to the next guy. You can take the walk, you can do all those little things. That’s just about becoming a team one through nine. It's important. We've gotten away from it at times and we've been really good at times, so it's just us trying to go out there and do it every night.”