Max Scherzer overcame a rocky start to win his Texas Rangers debut Thursday afternoon, allowing three runs and seven hits over six innings in a 5-3 victory against the visiting Chicago White Sox to complete a three-game sweep.
Scherzer (10-4) struck out nine and walked two following his trade from the New York Mets last weekend. The 39-year-old right-hander and three-time Cy Young Award winner was facing the White Sox for the first time since June 8, 2016.
Josh Sborz pitched a scoreless seventh for Texas, Aroldis Chapman stranded two runners in the eighth and Will Smith pitched the ninth for his 19th save.
Mitch Garver and Marcus Semien hit solo homers in the fourth inning to give the Rangers the lead for good.
White Sox starter Touki Toussaint (1-4) allowed four runs and five hits in 5 1/3 innings. He struck out nine and walked four.
Tim Anderson, Andrew Benintendi and Oscar Colas had two hits each and Gavin Sheets drove in two runs for Chicago, which has dropped four in a row.
Scherzer gave up back-to-back singles to start the game. After a one-out walk to Yoan Moncada, he walked Yasmani Grandal to force in a run and give Chicago a 1-0 lead.
Scherzer bounced back to strike out Trayce Thompson, but Sheets grounded an 0-2 pitch through the hole on the left side to score two more runs for a 3-0 lead.
The Rangers began to claw back starting with Josh Smith’s two-out opposite-field double in the second that fell just inside the left-field line and trimmed the deficit to 3-1.
Adolis Garcia added an RBI single in the third to make it 3-2.
Garver hit a 457-foot homer off Toussaint to lead off the fourth, his seventh, and tie the score 3-3.
After a pair of strikeouts, Semien took Toussaint deep to left to give the Rangers a 4-3 lead. It was Semien’s 17th of the season.
Texas tacked on an insurance run in the eighth on Garver’s two-out RBI single that made it 5-3.
–Field Level Media