Jonathan Aranda helped end a skid that had followed the Tampa Bay Rays into Arlington for years.
His third-inning home run tied Friday's game, his double in the four-run fifth helped blow it open, and he finished with two RBI in a 7-6 victory that snapped Tampa Bay's 10-game road losing streak against the Texas Rangers at Globe Life Field, the Associated Press reported.
Yandy Díaz collected three hits, Junior Caminero matched Aranda with two RBI, and Richard Palacios also went deep as the Rays improved to 84-57.
The middle innings that decided it
Ezequiel Durán had opened the scoring with a 419-foot solo homer in the second. Aranda answered in the third, and Palacios made it 2-1 with a homer in the fourth. Then came the fifth: Yandy Díaz, Aranda, and Caminero all doubled, Victor Mesa Jr. drove in a run, and Cedric Mullins' double-play grounder scored Mesa.
The inning produced four runs and turned a one-run lead into a five-run cushion before Texas mounted its late charge.
Kumar Rocker (5-11), working after two openers, absorbed Aranda's homer, Palacios' shot, and the fifth-inning damage. Nick Martinez (14-4) gave Tampa Bay the length it needed - 6.1 innings, five hits, three runs - in his first start as a visitor in the park where his major-league career began, the AP noted. The Rays piled up 12 hits without an error.
Texas managed seven hits and one error.
Holding on after the grand slam
Texas refused to fold. In the seventh, after Garrett Cleavinger walked Cody Freeman, Elias Díaz lined a grand slam just over the left-field fence - the Rangers' first of 2026 - and suddenly it was 6-5. Caminero's RBI single in the ninth restored a two-run lead.
