Jake Burger drove in three with a pair of home runs and Merrill Kelly outdueled Freddy Peralta on the mound as the Texas Rangers beat the Milwaukee Brewers 6-3 on Wednesday afternoon to sweep a key three-game interleague series in Arlington, Texas.
The Rangers (77-70) have won four straight games and kept pace with both first-place Houston, which is two games ahead in the American League West race and Seattle (one game up) for the final wild-card spot. Texas is a season-best seven games over .500.
Milwaukee (89-58) still heads the National League Central by six games with 15 games to play.
Kelly (12-7) lasted 5 2/3 innings, giving up three runs on while scattering a season-high 10 hits, with no walks and six strikeouts. The right-hander is 3-1 in his eight starts since being acquired from Arizona at the trade deadline and has allowed more than three runs just once while with Texas.
Phil Maton, the fifth Texas pitcher, got the final two outs to earn his fourth save of the season.
Peralta (16-6) entered the game carrying a 29-inning scoreless streak and added one more frame to that before the Rangers took charge. He left after five innings in which he surrendered five runs on six hits – including two home runs — and two walks while striking out nine. The right-hander lost for the first time in his last seven starts.
The Brewers started the game with a bang as Brice Turang and Jackson Chourio, the first two batters in the Milwaukee lineup, pounded solo homers to stake Peralta to a 2-0 lead. Texas answered in the second inning with Burger’s leadoff homer that halved the Rangers’ deficit.
Peralta’s lack of command caught up with him in the third. After a single by Michael Helman, Peralta walked Josh Smith and Wyatt Langford, then Joc Pederson drove home Helman by grounding into a fielder’s choice to tie the game. Peralta balked to allow Smith to trot home with the lead run.
In the fifth, Smith singled and scored when Burger took Peralta deep to center for a two-run home run that pushed the Rangers lead to 5-2.
Milwaukee pared its deficit to 5-3 in the sixth when a two-out RBI single by Rhys Hoskins plated Caleb Durbin and chased Kelly. Texas got the run back in the eighth as Rowdy Tellez’s groundout drove in Burger, who had walked.
