Nathan Eovaldi struck out nine in seven scoreless innings Friday night and the visiting Texas Rangers held on to defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4.
Eovaldi (8-7) allowed five hits and one walk before leaving with a 5-0 lead.
Justin Foscue hit a two-run home run and had three RBIs for the Rangers, who have two wins to open the four-game series. Wyatt Langford added three hits.
Kazuma Okamoto hit a two-run homer in a four-run eighth for the Blue Jays, who have lost four in a row.
Jacob Latz pitched around a walk in the ninth to earn his 16th save.
Texas scored three in the first against former Ranger Patrick Corbin (2-4). Langford led off with a single and stole second, Josh Jung was hit on the elbow by a pitch and Brandon Nimmo scooped an RBI double into the right field corner. Foscue and Ezequiel Duran added one-out RBI singles.
Jake Burger walked with one out in the third and Foscue homered to left on a 2-1 slider.
Corbin allowed five runs, seven hits and one walk with five strikeouts in 4 1/3 innings.
Eovaldi yielded only a second-inning walk until Vladimir Guerrero Jr. dinked a single to right with one out in the fourth.
Eovaldi retired the next five hitters before Andres Gimenez led off the sixth by lashing a double to right. He took third on a one-out single by Nathan Lukes before Guerrero grounded into a double play.
Toronto left fielder Jesus Sanchez left the game with an apparent ankle injury after crashing into the wall on an inning-ending catch on Nimmo’s drive in the seventh. Hitting for Sanchez, Davis Schneider struck out with one out in the bottom of the seventh with two runners on.
After Spencer Miles pitched 2 2/3 scoreless innings relief for Toronto, Adam Macko pitched around two walks in the eighth. He was recalled from Triple-A Buffalo on Friday with Simeon Woods Richardson designated for assignment.
Robby Ahlstrom allowed a leadoff single to Gimenez in the Toronto eighth and walked George Springer.
Jakob Junis replaced Ahlstrom with one out. After a wild pitch advanced the runners, Guerrero hit a two-run single. Okamoto homered to left on a 1-2 sweeper to cut Toronto’s deficit to 5-4, then Junis struck out two of the next three hitters to preserve the lead.
