With one out in the fifth inning, Nathan Eovaldi left the Texas Rangers holding a 6-1 lead, but the Minnesota Twins had put runners at the corners. Victor Caratini had doubled, Kaelen Culpepper had singled him to third, and Robert Garcia inherited the unfinished inning.
Garcia got the next hitter to supply both remaining outs. Luke Keaschall grounded into a double play, with Corey Seager, Ezequiel Duran and Jake Burger completing the sequence. Culpepper was forced at second, while Caratini remained at third. The inning ended, the score stayed 6-1, and Texas went on to beat Minnesota 6-2 at Target Field.
That handoff was the game’s quiet hinge. Eovaldi’s outing was short enough to create a question, but Garcia’s entrance prevented it from becoming a problem that traveled through the rest of the bullpen. Neither inherited runner scored.
Garcia returned for a scoreless sixth before giving way to Jakob Junis in the seventh. The win left Texas and Houston tied for the AL West lead at 80-81 after Saturday.
Eovaldi had faced trouble from his first batter. Luke Keaschall opened Minnesota’s half with a double, Brooks Lee grounded out to move him to third, and Kody Clemens grounded out to bring him home. Josh Bell then grounded out to end the inning. Minnesota scored on the groundout that produced the inning’s second out. Eovaldi then limited the damage to one run.
His later work was more complicated than the final line suggests. In the second, Eovaldi allowed a walk to Alan Roden, then saw Royce Lewis hit into a double play. The third brought another walk, this time to Keaschall, followed by Lee’s double. That put runners at second and third, but Eovaldi retired Clemens to preserve the lead Texas had built in the second inning.
The fourth was clean: Bell grounded out, Walker Jenkins struck out and Roden flew out. Eovaldi opened the fifth by striking out Lewis, his third punchout, before Caratini and Culpepper extended the inning.
His final line—4.1 innings, four hits, one earned run, two walks and three strikeouts—shows a pitcher who absorbed the early run and navigated later traffic, though not one who completed the assignment himself.
The Rangers had already supplied the cushion with six runs, including a four-run second inning and solo home runs by Danny Jansen in the fourth and Jake Burger in the fifth. But offense cannot retroactively finish an inning a starter leaves behind. Garcia had to protect a lead that was comfortable without treating it as automatic.
