{"id":810111,"date":"2026-09-20T22:42:43","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T22:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/810111\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T22:42:43","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T22:42:43","slug":"playoff-hopeful-blue-jays-avoid-series-sweep-with-7-2-win-over-al-west-leading-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/810111\/","title":{"rendered":"Playoff hopeful Blue Jays avoid series sweep with 7-2 win over AL West-leading Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) \u2014 Toronto leadoff hitter Brett Bateman<\/a> reached base and scored three times, twice knocked in by Nathan Lukes<\/a>, and the Blue Jays<\/a> beat the AL West-leading Texas Rangers<\/a> 7-2 on Sunday to avoid a series sweep in the matchup of playoff hopefuls. <\/p>\n

Bateman walked twice against Texas starter Jacob deGrom (11-10), scoring on a sacrifice fly by Lukes in the first and a go-ahead RBI single by Kazuma Okamota in the fifth. Bateman had a leadoff double to ignite a four-run seventh, scoring on a single by Lukes. <\/p>\n

With six games remaining, the Rangers (78-78) kept a one-game lead in the AL West after Houston (77-79) lost 4-2 at home to NL East champion Atlanta. The Astros<\/a> own the division tiebreaker. <\/p>\n

Toronto (77-79) had the same record as the Astros, and both were 2 1\/2 games behind the Chicago White Sox<\/a> for the third and final wild card. <\/p>\n

Spencer Arrighetti<\/a> (9-9), the second of seven Blue Jays pitchers, got the win despite giving up the only Texas runs over his two innings.<\/p>\n

DeGrom, who has been dealing with mild groin tightness, left with the bases loaded in the fifth and the Rangers down 3-2. Left-handed reliever Robert Garcia<\/a> induced an inning-ending double-play grounder on his first pitch. <\/p>\n

DeGrom allowed five hits, walked four and hit another batter. The two-time Cy Young Award winner’s two strikeouts put his season total at 196, just short of his fifth career 200-strikeout season. <\/p>\n

Lukes had a single and scored on Sean Keys<\/a>‘ double in the third for a 2-0 Blue Jays lead. Texas got even on Jake Burger’s<\/a> 27th homer, a two-run shot in the fourth that went 398 feet and deflected off Bateman’s extended glove when he leaped at the wall in center field. <\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Toronto opens a three-game series in Baltimore on Monday night. The Rangers have a day off before opening their final home series Tuesday night against the New York Mets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full MLB<\/a> coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) \u2014 Toronto leadoff hitter Brett Bateman reached base and scored three times, twice knocked in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":778380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2393],"tags":[5,61374,76469,400,19,4,8678,149,13188,71483,4678,1567,69,3240,70],"class_list":["post-810111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas-rangers","tag-baseball","tag-brett-bateman","tag-event_recap","tag-jake-burger","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-nathan-lukes","tag-rangers","tag-robert-garcia","tag-sean-keys","tag-spencer-arrighetti","tag-texas","tag-texas-rangers","tag-texasrangers","tag-toronto-blue-jays"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117305785951325020","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810111","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=810111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}