ARLINGTON, TEX. – With the NFL regular season kicking off next week, it wasn’t just the Cowboys dropping football scores in Texas. The Texas Rangers scored three touchdowns on the Los Angeles Angels, but missed the extra point, on their way to a 20-3 win in the ballgame. Except, this was baseball. 

The Rangers’ 20 runs was the most they’ve scored in a game this season, surpassing the 16-run record they’d scored in two separate instances earlier this season. The Rangers collected 22 hits in the massacre including four home runs, all with runners on, accounting for a major chunk of their onslaught of runs. 

The Angels actually scored first in the matchup, with a RBI double by outfielder Jo Adell putting Los Angeles on the board in the top of the first. That lead was of course fleeting and come the bottom of the seventh inning the Rangers had already surged ahead to a 12-3 lead with the help of home runs by Adolis Garcia, Joc Pederson and Corey Seager, usual suspects on the scoring side of the Texas lineup. 

Texas Rangers designated hitter Joc Pederson (4) reacts after scoring during the fourth inning against the Los Angeles Angels at Globe Life Field.

Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images

Texas Rangers designated hitter Joc Pederson (4) reacts after scoring during the fourth inning against the Los Angeles Angels at Globe Life Field.

At that point, the Angels were already staring down a very uphill battle, trailing by nine with just six outs to come back. With that deficit in mind and the fact that the Angels still have seven games of a long roadtrip ahead of them, part of a span where the Angels have just one day off across their next 17 games both home and away, Angels interim manager Ray Montgomery elected to start the eighth inning with a position player pitching and sent usual infielder and occasional reliever Oswald Peraza out to the mound. With Peraza on the mound the Rangers had an opportunity to turn a lopsided score into a cavernous one, and they very much did so. 

Seven of the first eight batters Peraza faced in the eighth reached base and the one out he did record was still a RBI ground out by Joc Pederson. 

This roll of baserunners brought Rangers catcher Kyle Higashioka to the plate with runners at first and second. On the first pitch Higashioka saw, a 36.6 MPH curveball at the top of the zone, he ripped a three-run home run to left field for his 10th long ball of the season and the capstone on an absurd night of scoring for Texas.

Angels starter Jack Kochanowicz bore the brunt of the Rangers runs, allowing 11 in 3.1 innings of work. 11 runs in a start, 10 of them earned, is tied for the second-most allowed by an Angels starter in franchise history. 

The few bright spots in the game for the Angels was the young core getting a chance to shine and accounting for all Los Angeles runs. Adell and Zach Neto both knocked in RBI doubles while Christian Moore hit his fourth home run of the season.

The Angels struggled in the first series of their long road trip and have struggled in many of their games as of late, going just 3-9 since their triumphant sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers earlier in August.Â