ARLINGTON, Texas – The Texas Rangers are getting offensive production from the catching spot regardless of who's behind the plate.
Saturday night it was Bobby Wilson's chance to shine.
Wilson delivered the game-winning double in the sixth inning after Baltimore manager Buck Showalter opted to walk Will Venable to get to Wilson. That move proved to be key as the Rangers made that sixth-inning RBI double stand up in a 4-3 win.
The win kept the Rangers in sole possession of the No. 2 wild-card spot in the American League and allowed them to match their 2014 win total at 67.
Wilson's big blow followed Friday night's game in which Chris Gimenez hit a crucial homer in the Rangers' 4-1 victory over the Orioles.
If Wilson needed any extra motivation going into the at-bat, he had it after Showalter made the decision to put Venable on with the go-ahead run at second base in Elvis Andrus.
"There's so much pride in what we do in here," said Wilson, who went 2 for 3 to raise his average to .206. "I definitely take it personally. That's been preached to me from a young age from my dad telling me 'Don't let people do that to you.' It was nice to come through there."
The bullpen made the run stand up for Martin Perez, with Keone Kela, Jake Diekman and Sam Dyson working solid outings to get the ball to Shawn Tolleson. Tolleson, who has saves in each of the last three games, bent but didn't break as he struck out Manny Machado to end the game with the tying run at third base.
The Rangers were put in that position by the continued solid play of their catchers, who have filled in for he injured Robinson Chirinos and Carlos Corporan.
"Any time they walk a hitter in front of you, that's a sense that they feel like that they like the matchup against you as a hitter," Texas manager Jeff Banister said. "Bobby's an extremely competitive guy and has been swinging the bat well for us. Both he and Gimenez out of that spot, you look at the production that we've gotten out of those two guys."
The Rangers got production early from both Perez and the offense.
Texas jumped on Baltimore's Ubaldo Jimenez for three runs in the third, with Adrian Beltre clubbing a two-run homer to cap the scoring. The home run was the 408th for Beltre, which is 51st all time.
Perez was sharp early as Baltimore didn't get a hit against him until Adam Jones singled with two outs in the fourth. Perez ran into trouble in the fifth inning as the Orioles tied the game with three runs on four hits. But Perez rebounded with a 1-2-3 inning in the sixth and was able to get the game to the winning pieces in the Texas bullpen.
"To go out there all you think is you've got to throw more than five innings because we've got a good bullpen," Perez said. "They did a great job tonight and we've got power pitchers back there now. And we can compete in every game."
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