The two Jakes rescue Rangers from 'pen in 10-inning win

KANSAS CITY -- What’s better than one Jacob?

A Jacob and a Jakob, who pitched three of the most important innings in the Rangers’ 6-4 extra-inning victory over the Royals on Wednesday night.

It was a back-and-forth affair at Kauffman Stadium, where the Royals took a 1-0 lead in the second, the Rangers took a 2-1 lead in the fourth and the two clubs were tied three times afterward. The newest Ranger, Elias Díaz, dealt the go-ahead knock with a full-count double in the 10th inning.

But it was the pitching performances from Jakob Junis and Jacob Latz that put the Rangers in position to win.

“Juno was down the last couple days, he needed a little break, so he was off for five or six games,” said manager Skip Schumaker. “He was feeling really fresh. The fact that he gave us two scoreless innings against a really tough part of the lineup was gigantic, because I didn't know how long this game was going to go. We didn't have too many guys available after Latz, so if they ended up tying it up, it was going to be interesting to see what happened. Luckily, we got a big win.”

Junis pitched a scoreless eighth and ninth innings after the Rangers tied the score, keeping it where it was to send it to extras.

Each of the three Rangers pitchers ahead of Junis allowed at least one run in the back-and-forth affair. And Junis was almost set for the same fate after hitting Lane Thomas, the first batter he faced. But Díaz came up with yet another big play, throwing out pinch-runner Tyler Tolbert, who was trying to steal second.

Junis cruised from there, facing the minimum over his two frames and lowering his ERA to 1.57.

“I got off to a shaky start, for sure,” Junis said. “Coming to those situations, you want to get the first guy out, for sure, and hitting him is not ideal. That’s putting a speedy guy on base. Thankfully, Díaz has a cannon, and Nicky [Lopez] held the tag to get that out. That was totally momentum changing for me on the mound. It was just going to work from there.”

“He's been efficient all year, he's been really good all year, and so he just stayed to himself, status quo for Juno,” Latz added of Junis.

Latz didn’t make the 10th inning easy on himself, either. After allowing a leadoff single to Jac Caglianone, he issued a full-count walk to Nick Loftin to load the bases with no outs.

Latz easily got himself out of the jam of his own making, striking out Isaac Collins and getting Tolbert to ground into a game-ending double play.

“[Caglianone] seems to have his best games against us,” Latz said. “I threw him a good pitch, and he hit it up the middle. I made some good pitches to Loftin, and just not a good 3-2, so I put myself in a jam. But we were still up two, so I felt really good.

“I had a good mix on multiple pitches, so confidence was still there. Tolbert is not an easy guy to double up, but I honestly was thinking, ‘Throw a changeup and see if he'll roll over one.’ He hit it to [Josh] Jung, which bailed me out for a pretty electric win.”

Latz has been the Rangers’ closer in all but official title since mid-April. The left-hander spent all Spring Training competing for the fifth starter spot before ultimately losing out to Kumar Rocker. He has been more than effective out of the bullpen, collecting his 10th save in the win.

“He’s gross,” Junis said affectionately. “His stuff is so good that even if he gets into a situation like that, he’s throwing 98 and his stuff is biting. We’re not really stressing. He’s been locking it down. We’ve got a lot of confidence in him.”

It was the second extra-inning game and win for the Rangers in 2026.

“It was a big win. Some teams or managers may characterize it in different ways, but I'm just going to say it was just a big clubhouse win,” Schumaker said. “We had the lead, we gave away the lead, we came back. I mean, there was a lot. It was just a really good baseball game to be a part of, and lucky we were on the winning side.”