{"id":669550,"date":"2026-04-08T04:01:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T04:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/669550\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T04:01:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T04:01:42","slug":"kyle-higashioka-homers-as-rangers-beat-george-kirby-for-1st-time-in-3-2-win-over-mariners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/669550\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyle Higashioka homers as Rangers beat George Kirby for 1st time in 3-2 win over Mariners"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) \u2014 Kyle Higashioka gave Texas the lead with a two-run homer, Nathan Eovaldi recorded his 1,500th career strikeout during six solid innings and the Rangers beat the Seattle Mariners 3-2 on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<p>Higashioka&#8217;s liner just over the wall in left field in the fifth put the Rangers in front 3-2 against George Kirby, who lost to Texas for the first time in 11 career starts. The right-hander won eight of those first 10.<\/p>\n<p>Brendan Donovan homered to right on the first pitch of the game in Eovaldi&#8217;s 300th career start, but the 36-year-old right-hander settled in and struck out seven, including Josh Naylor for his 1,500th to end the first inning. Eovaldi (1-2) allowed six hits and two runs.<\/p>\n<p>Jacob Latz finished two perfect innings with strikeouts of Naylor and Randy Arozarena, who combined to go 0 for 8 with seven strikeouts from the 4-5 spots in the Seattle order. The left-hander set a franchise record by holding opponents hitless in 28 at-bats to start the season.<\/p>\n<p>Jakob Junis pitched around consecutive singles to start the ninth for his second save in two games, matching his career total from 253 career appearances over nine seasons.<\/p>\n<p>Cal Raleigh gave Seattle a 2-0 lead in the fifth with an RBI single, one night after the catcher who led the majors with 60 homers in 2025 went deep for the first time this season.<\/p>\n<p>Kirby (1-2) had a career ERA of 0.97 against Texas when Joc Pederson and Evan Carter opened the fifth with consecutive singles. Pederson advanced to second on Donovan&#8217;s throwing error at third base, then scored on Carter&#8217;s base hit before Higashioka drilled an 0-1 pitch to left.<\/p>\n<p>Kirby gave up six hits over eight innings in his second career complete game \u2014 both losses in eight-inning outings \u2014 as Mariners lost a series for the first time in 10 meetings with the Rangers going back to September 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Mariners RHP Bryan Woo (0-0, 1.38 ERA) faces Texas lefty MacKenzie Gore (1-0, 3.97) in the series finale Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) \u2014 Kyle Higashioka gave Texas the lead with a two-run homer, Nathan Eovaldi recorded his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2393],"tags":[5,4492,3297,2266,465,9975,9270,13,94,9390,771,85129,4,394,9500,9501,9496,9497,9499,83366,1456,149,1567,69,3240],"class_list":{"0":"post-669550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas-rangers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-brendan-donovan","10":"tag-cal-raleigh","11":"tag-evan-carter","12":"tag-george-kirby","13":"tag-jake-junis","14":"tag-jake-latz","15":"tag-joc-pederson","16":"tag-josh-naylor","17":"tag-kyle-higashioka","18":"tag-mackenzie-gore","19":"tag-mariners-rangers-score","20":"tag-mlb","21":"tag-nathan-eovaldi","22":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","23":"tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","24":"tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","25":"tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","26":"tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","27":"tag-product-40820-ap-washington-state-sports-only","28":"tag-randy-arozarena","29":"tag-rangers","30":"tag-texas","31":"tag-texas-rangers","32":"tag-texasrangers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}