ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Jacob deGrom struck out nine over five innings for his first victory in more than a month and the Texas Rangers beat Baltimore 5-1 on Saturday night for their fourth consecutive victory.

The Rangers (59-58) moved back over .500 with the winning streak since a season-worst six-game losing streak that knocked them out of the AL West lead. They were also within a half-game of the division lead after Houston lost to San Diego.

Texas went ahead to stay with two unearned runs in the second inning, on two infield singles and two throwing errors. Corey Seager hit a three-run homer in the eighth.

It was the first start for deGrom (8-7) since he told the Rangers before last Monday’s trade deadline that he wanted to stay in Texas. At least one contending team inquired about the two-time Cy Young Award winner who has a full no-trade clause in his contract.

The right-hander struck out half of the 18 batters he faced and walked one while throwing 88 pitches (55 strikes). He had gone 0-2 while allowing 13 earned runs in 18 innings his previous four starts since a win June 30 at Cleveland.

Baltimore starter Kyle Bradish (7-11) struck out four without a walk over six innings.

Jackson Holliday homered for the Orioles (56-61), with the 403-foot homer snapping his 0-for-18 slide after deGrom struck out the game’s first two batters. Baltimore has lost five of seven games while scoring a combined three runs in the losses.

Ezequiel Duran had the first Texas hit in the second and moved up two bases on an errant pickoff attempt by Bradish. Duran scored with a sweeping headfirst slide on Evan Carter’s fielder’s choice grounder to drawn-in shortstop Gunnar Henderson.

A wild pitch sent Carter to second, and he scored when Henderson couldn’t make a barehanded grab on Jake Burger’s slow-rolling infield single. Henderson quickly recovered the ball, but made an errant throw home trying to get Carter.

Up next

In the series finale Sunday, left-hander Cade Povich (2-1, 3.91 ERA) was set to pitch for the Orioles, and right-hander Kumar Rocker (4-8, 4.08) for Texas.

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb