Luis Ortiz strikes out 7 but Corey Seager homers twice to lead Rangers past Pirates

Luis Ortiz matched his career best with seven strikeouts, but Corey Seager made the Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander pay for leaving a pair of pitches over the middle of the plate.

Seager hit a two home runs, a solo shot and a three-run blast, to lead the Texas Rangers to a 4-3 win over the Pirates on Monday night at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.

It was the second consecutive loss for the Pirates (58-66) and the second consecutive win for the Rangers (58-66). Even worse for the Pirates, it was their eighth consecutive loss on the road, and it marked their eighth consecutive loss in a one-run game, in which they are now 19-25.

“Seager beat us,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “The two home runs, we didn’t execute pitches to him. Other than that, I thought Luis threw the ball really well.”

Ortiz (5-4) allowed five hits and an intentional walk to Seager and was otherwise solid in throwing 57 of his 92 pitches (62%) for strikes over six innings.

Rangers starter Dane Dunning gave up five hits in four innings, including a three-run home run by Jared Triolo, before Jose Urena (4-8) followed with four scoreless innings and Kirby Yates pitched a clean ninth to earn his 22nd save.

When Ortiz left a full-count cutter over the middle of the plate in the first inning, Seager smashed it 449 feet to right field for his 27th home run to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead.

“My plan against him and everybody was just attack, attack them from the beginning,” Ortiz said through translator Stephen Morales, a Pirates coach. “He took me deep into the count. At the end, I just tried to make a pitch and I left it down the middle.”

Seager struck again in the third, after singles by Jonah Heim and Marcus Semien, when he smacked a first-pitch slider 400 feet to right for a three-run shot and 4-0 Rangers lead.

“He’s one of the best players in the game and we made two flat, middle-middle breaking balls to him and you cannot do that,” Shelton said. “I think we saw what happens when you do that.”

The Pirates answered in the fourth when Joey Bart hit a leadoff single, Billy McKinney delivered a two-out single, and Triolo sent Dane Dunning’s 1-1 slider 376 feet down the left field line for a three-run home run to cut it to 4-3. It was the second homer in three games for Triolo, who replaced Ke’Bryan Hayes at third base as the 2023 NL Gold Glove winner was placed on the 10-day injured list with low back inflammation.

The Pirates put runners on first and third in the fifth inning, when Bryan Reynolds singled and Bart reached on a fielder’s choice, but Urena got a favorable called third strike on a 97-mph inside fastball against Rowdy Tellez looking to strand both.

The Rangers didn’t allow another hit. Meantime, Pirates reliever Dennis Santana struck out the side in the seventh, and lefty Jalen Beeks got the final two outs of the eighth.

But the Pirates couldn’t overcome Seager’s two big swings.

“You can’t do that, especially with the way he’s swinging the bat,” Shelton said of Seager, who has nine homers, 18 RBIs and a 1.056 OPS this month. “You can’t miss in the middle of the plate. He’s going to do damage, if that’s the case – and he did damage tonight. You look at the totality of the outing, but the two pitches that we missed with ended up being the difference in the game.”