Rangers walk-off against Angels in wild 14-11 thriller

For the second consecutive night, the Texas Rangers engineered a walk-off victory against the Los Angeles Angels, and each time, it came via a mammoth home run. Just one night after AJ Pierzynski and Geovany Soto combined for two homers in the decisive 9th inning off of Ernesto Frieri, Texas outfielder Leonys Martin smacked a three-run home run off of David Stange for the 14-11 walk-off win.

It was just the 6th home run of the season for Martin, but this one was surely the biggest of the year for him. Texas trailed on 4 different occasions in the game, and somehow survived despite an error in the 8th inning that led to 3 incredibly costly runs.

The star of the show for the Rangers was Martin, but he certainly wasn’t alone in producing the 14 runs for Texas. The aforementioned Geovany Soto blasted a home run again (and finished 2-for-4 with 2 runs and 3 RBI) while Ian Kinsler added a 2-for-5 night that included a triple and 3 runs scored.

For the Angels, it was another night of disappointment in a long and winding road of a season. Despite Mike Trout reaching base for the 10th consecutive time during a 4-for-4 day, the Angels lost despite scoring 11 runs, and that pretty much sums up their season. They are firmly out of the race at this point, but the Martin blast surely sent their fans into even more of a tailspin.

It was only one win in July, but there is certainly a feeling that, with two swings on two, back-to-back nights, the Rangers may have changed the course of their season.