MILWAUKEE -- For the third straight day, the Rangers spent the first inning watching the Brewers jump ahead.
This time, they finally answered.
After falling into another early two-run hole, Texas’ offense came alive with timely hitting up and down the lineup, rallying for a 7-4 victory Sunday afternoon at American Family Field, as the Rangers avoided a sweep and snapped a four-game losing streak.
Ezequiel Duran provided the biggest spark. His towering, Statcast-projected 410-foot solo homer with two outs in the third tied the game at 2, and he struck again in the fifth, ripping a two-run ground-rule double into the left-center-field gap to give Texas its first lead of the series.
The Rangers did much of their damage with two outs. Back-to-back doubles in the second produced their first run, Duran’s homer followed an inning later and Joc Pederson added another two-out blow in the sixth, scorching a solo homer down the right-field line to extend the advantage to 5-2.
That offensive response was especially important on an afternoon when starter Kumar Rocker lasted just three innings. Texas’ bullpen was asked to cover the remaining six frames, while protecting a lead the Rangers desperately needed.
Texas added two unearned runs in the seventh to stretch the lead to five, before Milwaukee finally broke through against the bullpen with a two-run homer from Gary Sánchez in the bottom half, trimming the Rangers’ advantage to 7-4.
For a team that entered Sunday having lost 14 of its previous 17 road games -- and that spent the past two nights lamenting missed opportunities offensively -- the Rangers finally found the timely swings manager Skip Schumaker had been asking for.