Rangers Ruin Angels’ Rally

Mark Teixeira drove Kevin Gregg’s full-count fastball deep into the right-center field seats in the top of the 12th inning Thursday night, spoiling the Angels’ most dramatic comeback of the season and lifting the Texas Rangers to a 7-6 victory at Angel Stadium.

The Angels, 4-40 when trailing after seven innings, rallied in the eighth when Juan Rivera, whose hot bat fueled the Angels’ 19-7 July run, capped a four-run outburst with a three-run home run, his 12th homer in 26 games, to pull the Angels even, 6-6, and take rookie right-hander Jered Weaver off the hook for what would have been his first big league loss.

The score remained tied through 11 innings, Angels relievers Francisco Rodriguez (scoreless ninth) and Scot Shields (scoreless 10th) helping to offset Texas right-hander Wes Littleton’s two scoreless innings, but Teixeira led off the 12th with his 18th homer of the season, and closer Akinori Otsuka blanked the Angels in the bottom of the 12th for his 22nd save.

“You always like to take momentum and show you can come back, but at some point you have to finish them off,” Angels Manager Mike Scioscia said. “Their bullpen did a good job and let their big boys come back up again.

“Juan is having a terrific season, he had an incredible July, and he kept it going with a big hit. Unfortunately we couldn’t top it off.”

The game had swung heavily toward the Rangers when Texas center fielder Gary Matthews Jr. cut down the potential tying run at the plate in the bottom of the sixth to preserve a 3-2 lead and the Rangers rocked reliever Hector Carrasco for three runs in the seventh to take a 6-2 lead.

Maicer Izturis started the Angels’ comeback in the eighth with a one-out single to left, and after Orlando Cabrera flied to center for the second out, Vladimir Guerrero, who blasted a prodigious homer in the fourth inning, drove a run-scoring double to left-center to make it 6-3.

Guerrero has now hit safely in all 43 games against Texas, the longest streak by a player against an opponent in the last 50 years, and is batting .441 (75 for 170) with 15 home runs and 35 RBIs during the run.

Rangers Manager Buck Showalter pulled starter Kevin Millwood in favor of Ron Mahay, a left-hander who had limited Garret Anderson to one hit in 14 career at-bats, but Mahay walked the left-handed-hitting Anderson on four pitches.

Showalter went to his bullpen again for right-hander Rick Bauer, who had a 3-1 record and 2.90 earned-run average in 38 games and had not given up a home run in 49 2/3 innings this season.

One pitch later, everything changed. Rivera took a mighty swing at a first-pitch fastball and drove it high over the left-field wall for his 18th home run of the season and a 6-6 tie.

Until the eighth, the Angels managed two runs and five hits off Millwood, and it appeared Weaver, who gave up three runs and eight hits in six innings, would be saddled with his first big league loss.

The Angels nearly took Weaver off the hook in the sixth when they loaded the bases with one out and Anderson lined a single to center. Izturis, who had walked and took third on Cabrera’s single to left, scored to cut the lead to 3-2, and third base coach Dino Ebel waved Cabrera home from second.

But Matthews charged hard and fired on the fly to the plate to nail Cabrera for the second out.

Rivera grounded to the mound, ending the inning, and Texas pulled away in the top of the seventh, pounding Carrasco with four consecutive hits -- Matthews’ single, Michael Young’s double, Carlos Lee’s RBI single and Teixeira’s RBI double -- and nicking Romero with an RBI infield single for three runs.

Weaver, who threw 14 shutout innings in his previous two Angel Stadium starts, gave up his first run at home when Mark DeRosa doubled to lead off the second, took third on Ian Kinsler’s bunt single and scored on Brad Wilkerson’s sacrifice fly.

The Angels tied it in the fourth when Guerrero belted Millwood’s first-pitch fastball off the fake rock formation in left-center for his 22nd home run of the season.

But the Rangers pulled ahead in the sixth, a rally that started when Hank Blalock’s bloop down the left-field line bounced past an indecisive Anderson for a triple. DeRosa tripled to right-center for a run and scored on Kinsler’s single for a 3-1 lead.