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Kinsler leads Rangers past Orioles

Aug 10, 2008 - 10:07 PM By Rich Dubroff PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

BALTIMORE (Ticker) - Ian Kinsler was tired and so were the Texas Rangers. Now, they're going into Boston a rejuvenated team.

Kinsler had a career-high five hits, drove in three runs and scored three times Sunday to lead the Rangers to a 15-7 victory over the Baltimore Orioles.

In six at-bats, the All-Star second baseman collected four singles and a two-run home run in the fourth inning that gave Texas a 6-5 lead after the Orioles erased an early 4-0 deficit.

Marlon Byrd recorded four hits and four RBI for the Rangers, who snapped a four-game losing streak and matched a season high with 20 hits. Byrd capped the scoring with a three-run homer in the ninth.

Manager Ron Washington, who had watched his team get shut out twice in its past three games, was happy to see his team break out.

"We have to score to win," Washington said. "We have to pitch to win. The pitching is first. You've got no shot if you don't pitch. You just don't have a shot. We're not going to put eight runs on the board every night, but you've got no shot if you don't pitch."

On Friday, Washington sensed that Kinsler was dragging and gave him just fourth day off of the season. The major league leader in hits, Kinsler was batting just .205 in his previous 17 games.

"It was a great time for us to start swinging the bats," Kinsler said. "The day off that (Washington) gave me really helped me out."

Kinsler said that his teammates are able to quickly forget about their recent offensive struggles."

"We forget what we did the day before," he said. "If we had a game tomorrow, we'd forget what we did today."

The Rangers snapped a 6-6 tie with six runs in the fifth inning, when the first seven batters reached base. Randor Bierd (0-2) took the loss, allowing five runs in the inning without retiring a batter.

Travis Metcalf gave Texas a 7-6 lead with a bloop RBI single. Jason Ellison followed with a two-run single before Kinsler, who has 157 hits, and Michael Young added RBI singles. Byrd produced the final run in the inning with an infield out.

The Rangers go into Boston for a three-game series on Tuesday, hoping to be a factor in the American League wild card race. They are 6 1/2 games behind the wild card-leading Red Sox.

"We get a day off, get fresh legs, go to Boston, try to catch up," Byrd said. "That will tell us where we are at the end of that three-game span.

Matt Harrison (4-2) recorded the win, despite allowing six runs and 10 hits in five innings. Baltimore, which had won the first two games of the series, had two hits in each of Harrison's five innings.

Warner Madrigal pitched a scoreless sixth inning. Jamey Wright followed with two shutout frames and Eddie Guardado allowed a run in the ninth.

Texas scored four runs in the first inning off Chris Waters, who held the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim to one hit over eight innings in his major league debut Tuesday.

"There were some plays that coulda, shoulda, woulda been made, and that didn't happen," Baltimore manager Dave Trembley said. "But, it still comes down to you have to make pitches and you have to get outs and shut the other team down after they score."

Josh Hamilton broke a 3-for-22 slump with a three-run home run, his 28th of the season, and Metcalf added an RBI single in the inning.

"They were ready to break it out," Trembley said. "They score an awful lot of runs, and if you make a mistake, they don't foul it off, they hit it."

Baltimore got two back in the bottom of the first on Melvin Mora's two-run homer - his 17th of the season and 150th of his career - then grabbed a 5-4 lead on Aubrey Huff's two-run shot in the third.

"Today, we had two or three mistake pitches, and they were able to crush the ball," Mora said. "It was just one out of three, so we feel pretty good about it."