ARLINGTON — If Evan Carter got dubbed the “Little Savior” for his September and October heroics two years ago, what is in store for Michael Helman?
For a second consecutive night, Helman led the Rangers to a win over the team with best record in baseball. Only difference in the 5-4 win over Milwaukee on Tuesday compared to Monday: He did it with offense and defense this time around.
A night after his grand slam powered the Rangers to a victory over the team with the best record in baseball, he made a home run-saving catch and then hit a game-tying homer. Oh, he did both in the same inning.
More on that in a moment, but first, we also feel compelled to tell you that with the consecutive wins, combined with Houston’s walk-off loss at Toronto on Tuesday, the Rangers are 2½ games back of the Astros. It’s the closest they’ve been in the AL West since May 18, which was one day before the Rangers claimed Helman off waivers from Pittsburgh.
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The win pushed them to 76-70, tied for the most games they’ve been above .500 this year.
In the fifth inning, he kept a bad inning from turning worse, by going above the wall for a leaping catch in center on Brice Turang’s drive with a runner on base. According to Statcast it would have been a homer in 14 of 30 MLB stadiums, just not the one in which Helman was playing on Tuesday. For Helman, it was just another moment in a 24-hour window that not even Kiefer Sutherland could dream up.
The Brewers still scored three times in the inning thanks to three straight two-out hits that chased Jack Leiter from the game. After all, Helman couldn’t be everywhere.
But he did come up in the bottom of the inning and helped the Rangers see the Brewers three-run inning and raise it.
After Jonah Heim walked, Helman caught a 1-0 cutter from Chad Patrick that caressed the outside edge of the zone and drove into the same area where he’d just gone above the wall to tie the game.
It ignited the Rangers’ offense, which rolled off four consecutive hits starting with Helman’s homer, followed by Josh Smith’s single, Wyatt Langford’s go-ahead triple and pinch hitter Kyle Higashioka’s hustling double. When the inning was done, the Rangers had a 5-3 lead and had strung together all four elements of the cycle in the same inning for the first time in three years.
The bullpen did the rest of the work, stringing together the final 4⅓ innings.
Of course, no Rangers win these days comes without some big play from Cody Freeman. He got the scoring started in the third with a single that drove home Josh Jung.
Red-hot Rangers: See photos from Texas’ big-time win over the Milwaukee Brewers
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