ARLINGTON -- Skip Schumaker walked out to the mound, presumably to make a pitching change with two outs in the fifth inning.
Cole Winn began his jog from the bullpen, but as he was midway to the infield dirt, Schumaker about-faced to return to the dugout. It was a quick conversation between Schumaker and MacKenzie Gore on the mound, though the manager said Gore was talking at him as he made the walk to the mound.
“I'm not exactly sure what I was saying,” Gore said. “I'm assuming it was something like ‘I got this guy.’ …Obviously, I was hoping he was going to give me a chance to stay in there. I had a decent argument.”
The argument was good enough.
The Rangers left-hander remained in the game, looking to finish off what had been a frustrating outing. Gore got the final out, a popout in foul territory and fist pumped as he walked off the mound.
Schumaker said Gore had the exact conviction he’s looking for in his players.
“Typically, when I know exactly what I'm doing, I call for the bullpen right away,” Schumaker recalled. “As soon as I got on the top step, [Gore] was looking at me like, ‘I got it.’ That made me think even harder. He convinced me that he’s got it. That’s what you want to hear from the player.
“That doesn't always happen. I sometimes will take the ball. But you have to trust your players. He felt good enough that he was going to get that out. It ended up being a really big out. You're looking for momentum and that was a big moment for him and for us.”
Gore, who was one of the Rangers’ biggest offseason acquisitions, labored through his five innings in Texas’ 4-3 win over the A’s at Globe Life Field on Saturday night. He threw 35 pitches in the third inning, including three walks, a pair of singles and a sac fly to account for two of the three runs he allowed.
He struck out seven, but he consistently struggled to find the strike zone at times, specifically in 0-2 or 1-2 counts, continuing a trend from his last few starts. He has issued three or more walks in three of his first six starts this season, the most instances by a Texas starter in 2026.
“I thought we made an adjustment after the third inning,” Gore said. “I haven't been very good with two strikes in the last week and a half. Their lineup did a good job, but I think my last two outings have been very good with two strikes. We've made an adjustment after the third and I think moving forward, we’ll continue to make that adjustment, and we'll be OK.”
Though it wasn’t the smoothest outing, Schumaker commended Gore for getting through a full five innings and setting the bullpen up well to close out the game.
“If he doesn't get through the fifth inning, if he doesn’t tell me ‘I got this, I can finish it,’ that changes a lot of things for as far as the bullpen goes,” Schumaker said. “Who knows what happens there. Him getting through that fifth inning really helped set us up to come from behind and then ultimately win.”
And it was thanks to Josh Jung’s April heater that Gore wasn’t going to be tagged with a third-straight loss. The Rangers third baseman launched a two-run, go-ahead home run in the sixth inning to give Texas its first lead of the weekend series.
“It's always nice to dominate,” Gore said. “But this was a gutsy win by everybody, and especially against a division team. These ones go a long way, and we’ve got a chance to win a series tomorrow. So really gutsy win. Sometimes these are the best games.”
“Gutsy, yeah,” Jung added. “We grinded that one. That's what it takes. Over 162, you're gonna have a lot of wins like that. Being able to do it, get back in the series, give us a chance to win the series tomorrow, is huge.”