Rangers roll to 10-1 win against Mariners

ARLINGTON, Tex. There would be no repeat performance for Vidal Nuno against the Texas Rangers on Saturday night.

In his last start 10 days ago on Sept. 9 at Safeco Field, Nuno tossed seven shutout innings, allowing one hit, while striking out 10 batters and walking two in a 6-0 win over the Rangers.

It would be quite the opposite this time.

Nuno gave up five runs and never made it out of the fourth inning and there was no coming back for the Mariners against Cole Hamels and the Rangers in a decisive 10-1 drubbing at Globe Life Park.

It wasn’t a pretty outing for Nuno, who was vying for just his second win as a starter in his 38th career MLB start. He allowed five hits, walked four batters, made an error, hit a batter and tossed a wild pitch. On top of all that, he didn’t get a ton of help from his defense.

He could never get into much of a rhythm with runners constantly on base.

As a spot starter, Nuno isn’t expected to toss complete games or even repeat the solid results from his last start. But the Mariners do expect more than what they got against the first-place Rangers.

It started early, giving up three hits in the first inning, including an RBI single from Mike Napoli.

Texas added two more runs in the second inning without a base hit leaving the infield. Nuno issued a leadoff walk to Elvis Andrus and a delivered a poor throw to first on Rougned Odor’s bunt for an error to put both runners in scoring position. Chris Gimenez drove in a run with a ground ball to first and Delino DeShields scored another run on a sac fly to center.

After a 1-2-3 third inning, Nuno loaded the bases with one out in the fourth on a walk, a bunt single to DeShields that first baseman Jesus Montero thought Nuno was going to field, and a walk to Shin Soo-Choo.

Manager Lloyd McClendon had seen enough. He called on hard-throwing right-handed reliever J.C. Ramirez to end the rally. But Ramirez only helped it. Adrian Beltre lined a double to the right-center gap to score two runs and push the lead to 5-1.

The Mariners’ bullpen, which had been solid of late, reverted to early-season form. Right-hander Jose Ramirez gave up three runs in the fifth inning, while only recording one out to turn the game into a rout.

Mayckol Guaipe gave up a pair of runs in the eighth inning to help the Rangers reach double digits.

Meanwhile, Hamels was solid, pitching seven innings while allowing one run on seven hits with no walks and 12 strikeouts to improve to 4-1 with the Rangers in nine starts. It was the ninth time he’s struck out 12 or more batters in his career and the third time this season.

That lone run came in the second inning. With the Mariners down 1-0, Franklin Gutierrez crushed a home run to lead off the second inning. Gutierrez crushed a 3-2 changeup over the wall in center, giving him 14 homers this season in 140 at-bats.

But that was it for Mariners’ offense. Hamels stranded all seven base runners that Seattle generated against him, while Mariners hitters went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position.

The Mariners went hitless in the final two innings against the Rangers’ bullpen.

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