SEATTLE -- All the work Jacob deGrom did was flushed down the drain in just 10 pitches.
The Rangers’ ace was perfect through his first five innings against the Mariners on Thursday afternoon, cruising to 10 strikeouts before he even allowed a baserunner. Seattle’s first hit was on a Cole Young comebacker that bounced off deGrom’s glove into no-man’s land behind the mound.
deGrom completed six scoreless innings, facing just one over the minimum and collecting a season-high 12 strikeouts, the most of his Rangers tenure. He exited the game with Texas leading by three runs.
But those three runs, and a potential Rangers win, evaporated quickly.
Reliever Jakob Junis entered in the seventh inning to face the heart of Seattle’s lineup. He faced four hitters, all of whom would come around to score, capped off with Julio Rodriguez’s go-ahead three-run homer. Junis did not record an out, as the Rangers ultimately fell, 4-3, in the rubber game at T-Mobile Park.
Texas has not won a road series since before the All-Star break, when it swept a four-game set in Toronto before taking two of three in Cleveland from June 25-July 1.
The Rangers (72-75) also could not take advantage of an opportunity to gain ground in the American League Wild Card race, with both the Blue Jays (73-74) and Guardians (74-73) sitting idle on Thursday. Texas fell to three games behind Houston (75-72) in the AL West.