Relentless Rangers bats match 1936 Yanks in sweep

ARLINGTON -- In their own words, the Rangers were ticked after getting home from their most recent road trip. Which is slightly confusing considering that first-place Texas won series in Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Detroit to hold onto a multi-game lead in the American League West.

But that wasn’t enough. The Rangers weren’t satisfied with just winning those series, they wanted to sweep them all.

“We expect to win every single game we go out and play,” rookie third baseman Josh Jung said upon the club’s return to Texas. “Regardless of where it is, what time it is, what the travel was -- we expect to win every day, That's just the energy we feel throughout this clubhouse.”

Well they’re definitely not peeved after this one.

The Rangers completed a three-game sweep of the Mariners with a 12-3 win on Sunday afternoon at Globe Life Field to move to 38-20 on the season. It's the fourth sweep of the year for Texas as it reached the best 58-game record in franchise history at 18 games over .500.

“It was good to finish it off this time,” said skipper Bruce Bochy, who moved past Walter Alston for 10th place on the all-time managerial wins list with 2,041. “We were close the last two series, and this is a good team with great pitching. They were in the playoffs last year, so for us to come out and do this and take the series here [is great].

“Again, I can't emphasize enough, we're not getting too giddy here. We have a lot of baseball left, but this is the type of baseball we have to continue playing. And I do believe that these guys can even grow together and peak more than what they already have.”

It’s almost hard to see how the Rangers could get any better right now.

After winning a tight 2-0 pitchers’ duel in the series opener against Seattle, Texas proceeded to log back-to-back blowout victories, outscoring the Mariners, 28-9, over the final two games.

Sunday’s series finale was the 16th time the Rangers have scored at least 10 runs in a game this season, tied with the 1936 Yankees for the most times scoring 10 or more runs in a team’s first 58 games of a season since 1900. Every Rangers starter had at least one hit, with five logging multi-hit games.

The hot offensive Sunday was capped up by home runs from Corey Seager and Jonah Heim.

“I think it just comes down to trusting in the guy behind you,” Heim said of the offensive success. “You can go out there and put up a good at-bat, and even if you don't get the job done, you have confidence in the guy behind you're gonna get the job done.

“So I think guys are going up there with a good approach and swinging at pitches that they can do damage on and not chasing, and guys have taken our walks and it leads to big innings. I think it just comes down to trusting the guy in front of you or behind you to put together good at-bats.”

The Rangers’ offense was so good that it overshadowed starter Nathan Eovaldi -- the reigning AL Pitcher of the Month for May -- who tossed six scoreless innings to lower his season ERA to 2.24.

The right-hander said this is definitely one of the best and deepest offenses that he’s played with during his career, comparing the group to the 2018 Red Sox team that won the World Series.

“There are just threats up-and-down the lineup,” Eovaldi noted.

Everything is clicking for the Rangers, from the continued success of the offense to a rotation that entered the series finale ranked third in the AL in ERA (3.24) while missing ace Jacob deGrom for more than a month to quality defense at almost every position.

The only question, if you ask Bochy, is how much better they can get?

“I’ll tell you what, it's relentless,” outfielder Travis Jankowski said. “No matter the score, no matter the opponent, early in the game, late in the game, it's just quality at-bats from the offensive side. The pitching is doing so well, but we're playing really good defense, too.

“We have been all year, so it's one of those things like everything's firing on all cylinders, and it's great to be a part of.”