The West Is Ours! Texas Wins Second Straight Division Title
By: Josh Clark
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OAKLAND (105.3 The Fan) - After 154 games, The Rangers have sewn up their second straight and seventh overall AL West title.
Cole Hamels returned to dominance to shut out the A's through 7 innings. Hamels allowed six hits and two walks, while striking out seven, to lead Texas to a 3-0 win Friday night. Hamels had recently struggled in two out of his last three starts, but he was every bit of the ace Texas needed him to be on this night.
"It's fun, you know what's at stake. It's always great to be apart of it, especially being out on the mound," said Hamels on the Rangers postgame show on Fox Sports Southwest. "We really have a big goal and that's to win the world series. It's just one stage and we got three more to go."
"He was unbelievable, he clinched last year for us. And he did it again today. He's been huge and hopefully he can be the same way for us in the postseason," Beltre said about Hamels.
The Rangers offense was being shut out themselves through six innings.
Oakland's Kendall Graveman was throwing a perfect game heading into the top of the 7th inning when Carlos Gomez legged out an infield single to break it up. Ian Desmond followed with a single and Carlos Beltran brought Gomez in on a groundout to first. That wasn't all of the offense though as Adrian Beltre followed Beltran with a first pitch home run to left field to cap a three run inning. Beltre now has 31 home runs on the season, tying him with Rougned Odor for the team lead.
Texas will return to the playoffs for the fifth time in the last seven seasons. And they still have a lot to play for down the stretch. Rangers manager Jeff Banister will have to decide whether or not to rest his regulars players or keep playing them to ensure home field advantage throughout the playoffs. But it seems he's already made a decision to go for it all.
"It's been a long road. An offseason that obviously... how it ended last year... gut punch. I couldn't be more proud of our guys. They stayed focused all year long. I know there were some doubts along the way at how we were going to respond coming back from last year, the last series, the last game of the year," said Banister. "These guys, they show up every single day. We talk about it every day, the mission, this is only stage one. There's so much more that these guys want to accomplish. I'm proud of them. I'm glad that we got it done tonight. It's an incredible surreal feeling, but again, we got a lot left to play for to finish out this season."
Texas is a half game ahead of the Cleveland Indians, and a game ahead of the Boston Red Sox for the American League lead. Texas and Boston both have eight games remaining, while Cleveland has nine games left.
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