ARLINGTON, Texas — If there’s anything to be learned from Adolis García, who hit a mammoth home run on the very-first pitch he saw Saturday night, it’s that you shouldn’t wait to break out the good stuff.
So we won’t. Here’s the good stuff.
García went 5 for 5 with three home runs, two doubles, five runs scored and eight RBIs, and powered a Texas Rangers’ offense that rolled past the Oakland Athletics, 18-3, on Saturday night at Globe Life Field. He was one of six Rangers with multiple hits, and he drove in nearly half of Texas’ season-high 18 runs.
“[I] was just looking for a certain pitch in a certain zone,” García said through a translator. “Wasn’t trying to do too much, and not overthink.”
In the process of not trying to do too much, he did an awful lot.
He became the third player in the modern era (1901 and beyond) to record 16-plus total bases, three home runs, eight RBIs and five runs scored. Anthony Rendon (April 30, 2017) and Gil Hodges (Aug. 31, 1950) are the others. His five extra-base hits tied the single-game MLB record. He became the first player in American League history to hit three home runs and two doubles in a single game. His eight RBIs were second-most in Rangers history (behind only Ivan Rodriguez’ nine in 1999) and his five runs scored tied a team record, done seven times before.
Take a minute to read that again. You don’t want to miss anything.
“You just don’t see that often,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “He’s a tremendous talent.”
Ditto on both points. García’s first home run — a 432-foot shot off of Oakland starter Shintaro Fujinama into the second level of left field — tied the game at 2-2. His second, in the third inning, went 419 feet and gave the Rangers a 11-2 lead. His third, in the fifth inning, went 401 feet and gave the Rangers a 13-2 lead.
He hit a combined 1,252 feet of home runs and became the first Ranger to hit three in a game since Ronald Guzman did so against the New York Yankees on Aug. 10, 2018.
“He’s just that dangerous,” said Rangers starter Andrew Heaney, who picked up the win and gave up two earned runs in six innings pitched. “I know from being on the other side of it, we talk about that. Being on this side is much more fun.”
García had not one, but two chances to hit a fourth home run, a feat accomplished just 18 times in MLB history. He settled for two doubles, one in the seventh inning and another in the ninth.
“We were all waiting in anticipation,” Bochy said, “Excited about the moment. He had a chance to make history, and that’s pretty cool. You get two doubles, that’s not too shabby either.”
Now for some quick math from the veteran skipper.
“The total bases equals four home runs,” he said.
García said that he had a three-home run game in Triple-A, back in 2018. He smiled, too, and said that he had eight RBIs in that game as well.
It’s got to be hard to not smile after a night like that.
“Didn’t expect something like this to happen,” García said through a translator.
With the way the collective Rangers have been hitting it lately, maybe he should have.
Buried beneath Garcia’s historic game are a few other notable performances. Catcher Jonah Heim went 1 for 2 with a double and two RBIs, and extended his on-base streak to 11 games. Third baseman Josh Jung went 2 for 6 with two RBIs, a run scored and extended his hitting streak to 10 games. Second baseman Marcus Semien — on a tear since the start of the Houston series — went 2 for 3 with two runs scored and two driven in. He reached base in the first, second and third innings.
The Rangers scored twice in the first, five times in the second, four times in the third, twice in the fifth, three times in the seventh and two more times in the eighth. They knocked Shintaro Fujinami out of the game after just 2 1/3 innings pitched, and faced an Athletics’ position player (Jace Peterson) on the mound by the eighth.
It was the sixth time this season the Rangers scored double-digit runs, and it was their seventh win by five or more runs.
“These guys, they feed off of each other,” Bochy said. “I think it does get contagious.”
Now they’ll hope whatever they caught doesn’t go away any time soon.
