SEATTLE (AP) Cole Hamels has a long history of winning down the stretch, and he gave the Texas Rangers exactly what they needed Thursday night.
Hamels dominated for eight innings, Adrian Beltre and South Korea’s Shin-Soo Choo went deep, and the Rangers beat Seattle 4-2 to hang around the AL wild-card hunt.
Texas and the Los Angeles Angels are 2 1/2 games behind Minnesota for the second wild card. The Angels lost to Cleveland, while the Twins blew out Detroit.
Hamels (11-4) allowed three hits and a run while striking out eight. He gave up a solo homer to Nelson Cruz – his 35th – in the seventh, along with a pair of singles to Jean Segura.
Hamels has a 29-16 career record in September and October, including 8-3 in three seasons with Texas.
”That’s veteran leadership showing up,” Rangers manager Jeff Banister said. ”That’s knowing how to go out and perform and put your team in a winning situation. We’ve seen it so many times before from him.”
Keone Kela got his second save despite yielding a solo homer to Robinson Cano in the ninth. It was Cano’s 22nd this season and 300th of his career.
”It means a lot,” Cano said. ”In a humble way, it’s something that makes me proud of myself, proud of my family and the way they raised me to help me get to this level.”
The Mariners have lost five straight games and are five back in the wild-card chase with nine games remaining.
James Paxton (12-5) allowed two runs in 3 2/3 choppy innings. The hard-throwing left-hander was making his second start since a pectoral injury landed him on the disabled list, and he’s struggled both times.
”I was moving the fastball around better, breaking stuff was sharper,” Paxton said. ”Not as sharp as I can be, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. Tonight, unfortunately, it wasn’t enough.”
Carlos Gomez had a two-run double in the first that caromed off the glove of Seattle third baseman Kyle Seager.
”It’s important for us to finish strong,” said Gomez, now in his 11th big-league season. ”We showed the young guys that this is going to be tough but we never give up.”
Beltre hit his 17th home run in the sixth and Choo hit his 20th in the seventh. For Beltre, that tied him with Jose Canseco, Adam Dunn and Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera for 35th on the career home run list with 462.
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