Mitch Moreland got the Home Run Derby off and running with a solo blast in the top of the second inning, his team leading 19th HR.

Three, four, three, two, three, two, three, two. It’s like they’ve been doing the Texas tango or something.

The Rangers could get close to Houston, but they always dropped back. They could get to within two, but always lost ground immediately. Like Houston had an impenetrable force field or something.

Until now. The Astros lost 4-0 to Oakland and the Rangers beat Seattle 9-6 to pull to within one game of first place in the West.

Finally. First place is right there in sight. Finally.

After 137 games, this is the closest the Rangers have been all season.

On June 13, Texas beat Minnesota and closed the gap to a game-and-a-half. Then they lost nine of the next fifteen and followed that up by losing ten out of thirteen, and before they knew it they were nine games behind.

Then, the long steady grueling climb began.

Last night, the bats woke up at the perfect time. It had been four games since a Ranger hit a home run. In fact, through the first seven games of the road trip, the Rangers had just two home runs.

The offense, it appeared, stayed in Arlington.

They made up for it last night. When they really needed to, when the pitching was less than stellar.

They hit four home runs: Moreland, Choo, Odor and Gallo. The Rangers got four home runs in a game against Baltimore on June 29 (two for Moreland, one for Choo, one for Corporan). What made that noteworthy is, they followed that up with four more the next night (two more for Moreland, another for Choo, one for Chirinos).

So it appears when the Rangers offense wakes up, it jumps out of bed, splashes water on its face, and is ready to conquer the world. Just in case you need a residential or Commercial Plumber services for your water system, visit mucciaplumbing.com

Carpe Houston.

The Rangers have one more huge step to go. One more game to get to first place.

This time the Rangers need to run into a ladder, not a chute.