After shaky 1st, Gore (9 K's) locks in with 'dang good start' for Texas

ST. PETERSBURG – After a first-inning ambush, Rangers left-hander MacKenzie Gore was as good as he has been all season. He went seven innings. He retired 20 of his last 21 batters.

But about that ambush …

The Rays defeated the Rangers 3-0 on Wednesday night at Tropicana Field after Gore surrendered a solo home run to Yandy Díaz (on his first pitch) and a two-run shot to Ryan Vilade (a Statcast-projected 420-foot shot off the Trop’s C-ring).

The Rangers couldn’t solve left-hander Ian Seymour, who went 4 2/3 effective bulk innings after opener Casey Legumina got the first five outs.

But after the first, the Rays couldn’t solve Gore, who allowed just three hits (including a first-inning double to Jonathan Aranda) with nine strikeouts and no walks. Gore faced 25 batters in all and never went to ball three.

With the Rangers utilizing four relievers in Tuesday night’s win and planning a bullpen day for Thursday afternoon, Gore did his job – and then some.

“The bulk of MacKenzie’s outing was fantastic,’’ Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said. “He was on the attack. A lot of first-pitch strikes. A lot of strikes in general. It’s just too bad that a couple of home runs cost him.

“That could’ve gone sideways quick with a bullpen game tomorrow, then we’d be having a different conversation and we’d have to make some different moves. It was spiraling and it could’ve gone sideways. But it did not. He shut them down the rest of the game, which I thought was a sign of growth. That’s a dang good start and he gave us a chance. But we just couldn’t get back into the game offensively.’’

Gore gave up three high-impact extra-base hits and threw 29 pitches in the first inning.

But from that nightmarish beginning, he recovered and became dominant. After the first inning, the Rays’ only baserunner through the seventh was a hit batter (fifth inning, Ben Williamson on a 1-2 cutter that didn’t cut).

“I thought we had a good plan going in, but the first pitch of the game [Díaz’s homer off a 94.3 mph fastball], that’s never a good thing,’’ Gore said. “Then I think if we throw the changeup [to Vilade] like we threw about every other changeup tonight, it’s probably not a homer. I left it over the plate. So there wasn’t something I necessarily had to change.

“I just executed a little better. It’s pretty frustrating to start the game like that. But we just kept throwing punches and we were able to get through seven innings.’’

Meanwhile, the Rangers’ offense couldn’t land any of its punches. Seymour retired 13 of his first 14 batters. In the seventh, after Jake Burger smacked a one-out double and Nicky Lopez walked, the Rays went to left-hander Garrett Cleavinger. He struck out Cam Cauley and got Alejandro Osuna on a weak tapper in front of the plate, easily ending the Rangers’ only real threat.

“Seymour had all his pitches working,’’ Schumaker said. “His changeup was really good. The backdoor sweeper gave us some trouble and the fastball at the top [also was challenging]. We just kept popping the ball up and getting some soft contact.

“We just didn’t have an answer for him. We really only had one inning with guys on base in a leveraged spot [seventh inning]. But we just couldn’t get anything going offensively.’’

It was a defeat, but Schumaker said Gore had a winning effort.

“What he did was extremely valuable,’’ Schumaker said. “Six scoreless. All you can ask is for a pitcher to give you a shot and he did. I don’t think you could ask for anything more. If Gore gave us five innings, it would’ve been a good outing. Quite honestly, going seven and giving us a shot to win was an incredible outing based on what we were up against.’’

In the big picture, Gore’s effort and the bullpen day potentially gives Nathan Eovaldi, Jacob deGrom and Kumar Rocker another day of rest heading into the big American League West weekend series against the Astros.

“It was one pitch at a time and try to hold them to three [runs],’’ Gore said. “That was my thought. You don’t want it to get to more than three. After that [two homers in the first], all you can do is get the next guy, then the next guy. And that’s what we did.’’