Rangers hope Trevino's career night 1st of many

ARLINGTON -- Rangers rookie catcher Jose Trevino went a career-best 3-for-3 with two RBIs to propel Texas to a 6-3 victory over the Mariners on Friday night at Globe Life Park. He’ll get plenty more chances in the final month of the season.

Rangers manager Chris Woodward said that Trevino is another young player that the club wants to take a hard look at down the stretch after splitting duties behind the dish with Jeff Mathis since being called up from Triple-A Nashville on Aug 2. Trevino is scheduled to start again on Saturday and will likely get the majority of the playing time in September.

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“I think so,” Woodward said. “I think it's important to see what we got. You know, like I said, offensively, he's showing some pretty good things and we know what he can do defensively. He's becoming a pretty good asset for us.”

The Rangers haven’t had much offensive production from their catchers this season. Woodward’s priority is for his backstops to excel at defense and mesh with their pitchers. That’s why Mathis was signed to a two-year deal last offseason. But the Rangers aren’t going to turn it down either.

Trevino became the first Rangers catcher to record three hits in a game this season. It also marked just the sixth multi-RBI game by a Texas backstop in 2019. Trevino entered the night hitting .190 (8-for-42) with a double, a homer and three RBIs in 17 games since being recalled.

“It’s baseball. You never know what’s going to happen,” Trevino said. “But it’s definitely a confidence booster. Hard work you put in is coming into place. Everybody wants to contribute offensively, but the first priority is the pitcher. I always care about the pitchers. If I get a couple of hits here and there, some RBIs, it’s important to help my pitcher, but that’s pretty good too.”

Rangers catchers overall began the night last in the American League at their position with a combined eight homers, 34 RBIs and a .284 slugging percentage. Their .183 collective batting average was the second lowest in the AL.

“The most important thing the catchers do is what they're doing right now,” Woodward said. “We have a young group of pitchers that they need help. They need to control the games. They need to understand the game-calling, and that's the most important job.

"What you get out of them offensively -- I hate to say it -- but it is secondary. I would love to have more offense. But I don't want to sacrifice more offense with less defense."

Trevino had substantial responsibility behind the plate on Friday catching three rookies, including Kolby Allard, who picked up the win by holding the Mariners to two runs over 5 2/3 innings. After veteran Shawn Kelley went one inning, rookies Taylor Guerrieri and Emmanuel Clase closed it out with a combined 2 1/3 scoreless innings. Clase pitched the ninth to earn his first Major League save.

“I thought Trevino did great,” Allard said. “He swung the bat and called all the right pitches. Without him, we wouldn’t have won that game. He did a great job."

The Rangers' first run was driven in by Rougned Odor, who had an RBI double in the second to score Nick Solak, who had led off with a double against Mariners starter Marco Gonzales. Odor’s hit snapped an 0-for-28 skid.

The score was 1-1 in the third when Trevino led off with a double and he ended up scoring on Willie Calhoun’s sacrifice fly. The Rangers were up 3-2 in the bottom of the sixth when Danny Santana led off with a homer. Trevino followed with a two-run double in the inning.

“Yeah, he's been working really hard offensively,” Woodward said. “Everything we know about him was from a coaching standpoint -- his best asset, obviously, is his defense. But he's been working really hard offensively. So, to kind of get some results to show for it, I feel like he's been having quality at-bats -- to kind of have a breakout game and basically win the game for us today was pretty impactful.”