Rangers Miss Sweep With 11-3 Loss

Diamondbacks win at Rangers Ballpark for first time since 2000

The Texas Rangers did nothing to help Scott Feldman with their bats or gloves.

Feldman also did plenty to hurt himself against Arizona after striking out the first three batters he faced.

Daniel Hudson rebounded from the shortest outing of his major league career with seven solid innings, retiring 16 of 17 batters after Texas went ahead with a run in the first, and the Diamondbacks won 11-3 on Thursday night for their first victory at Rangers Ballpark since 2000.

Jason Kubel, Gerardo Parra and Miguel Montero homered for Arizona, against three different pitchers.

The Diamondbacks scored one run while losing the first two games of the series, but led for good in the finale after Kubel's two-run homer in the second off Feldman (0-6).

An error by first baseman Mitch Moreland, after a disputed call at first that would have ended the inning, came right before a two-run double by Lyle Overbay for a 4-1 Arizona lead.

"Stuff happens, but you've got to get the next guy out," Feldman said. "I didn't do that tonight."

Feldman gave up six runs, four earned, and eight hits. The big right-hander struck out six without a walk.

"We still have confidence in him. I don't lose confidence in my players," manager Ron Washington said. "We made some mistakes behind him, but when they make mistakes you've got to get outs."

Texas took a 1-0 lead when Elvis Andrus doubled in the first and scored on a single by Adrian Beltre.

But Hudson (3-1) then got in a groove, allowing only a third-inning single by Andrus and striking out the side in the sixth before Beltre led off the seventh with a double.

"Get momentum, especially getting a lot of guys in a row out, pitching out of the windup a lot, just get in a rhythm," Hudson said. "Mechanics are the same every single time, that's what we strive for."

Asked if that's how he felt, the right-hander responded, "Yeah, it did."

Feldman was gone after Montero and Overbay had consecutive doubles to start the sixth. Aaron Hill and Ryan Roberts had one-out singles before Parra's fifth homer.

Parra's three-run shot off reliever Tanner Scheppers capped the five-run sixth. Montero hit a two-run homer in the ninth off Yoshinori Tateyama.

Hudson struck out a season-high seven without a walk only six days after he gave up six runs in 1 2-3 innings, his shortest career start, against Oakland in a game the Diamondbacks eventually won 9-8.

"He kept it together there," manager Kirk Gibson said. "They got the run in the first inning, and stayed in the game plan, kept them off balance, did a good job of shutting them down."

David Murphy homered for Texas in the seventh, a two-run shot that was his seventh this season. Murphy has hit the Rangers' only two homers over the past four games.

The performance by Hudson came a night after the Rangers managed only three hits in 7 2-3 innings off rookie lefty Wade Miley, a game the Diamondbacks lost 1-0.

Arizona had lost seven consecutive games at Rangers Ballpark since last winning there in June 2000.

Overbay had three hits for the Diamondbacks. He had a one-out single in the second before Kubel's seventh homer, his third in seven games and first on the road. Kubel has 14 RBIs in that same stretch.

Justin Upton, who was called out on strikes three times, reached on a two-out infield single in the third on a slow roller that shortstop Andrus barehanded and threw to first. The close play brought Washington out of the dugout to question first base umpire Marty Foster.

Montero then hit an apparent inning-ending grounder, but the ball went under Moreland's glove and into right field, setting up Overbay's double to center that made it 4-1.

"I missed it. It had a lot of top spin on it. It stayed down on me. I should have gotten down on it," Moreland said. "You don't ever want to make an error. If I get the same ball tomorrow, I'll try to block it up and make the play."

Notes: Rangers leadoff hitter Ian Kinsler was ejected by home plate umpire Eric Cooper in the sixth after a called third strike. The ejection actually came after Kinsler went to the dugout and a pitch had already been thrown to Andrus. At that point, Kinsler went to the top steps of the dugout and shouted a few more words toward Cooper before flashing a sarcastic thumbs-up signal. .... Gibson moved CF Chris Young up from sixth in the batting order to leading off hoping to create a spark. Young was 0 for 5, but made two impressive catches. He recovered after getting turned around in the second on Murphy's deep fly ball, and to the deepest part of the park in right-center to catch Nelson Cruz' fly ball near the warning track in the seventh.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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