Severino erratic in final regular season start
Rangers’ Odor has career-high six RBIs
Luis Severino was a bit erratic in his third and final start of the regular season, with four walks and a throwing error over three innings, and the AL East champion New York Yankees lost 9-4 to the Texas Rangers on Saturday night.
Rougned Odor had a career-high six RBIs for the Rangers, including his 30th homer that was a grand slam in the sixth to make it 8-1.
Odor put the Rangers ahead to stay with a tworun double in the first, the only hit and runs allowed by Severino (1-1). The righthander had already walked two batters and committed his error on a pickoff attempt by then.
Severino will go into the playoffs having pitched only 12 innings for the Yankees this season after recovering from a lat injury that had sidelined him since spring training. A 19-game winner in 2018, he struck out four while throwing 72 pitches against 14 Texas batters. He had tossed nine scoreless innings before that, four against the Los Angeles Angels and five against Toronto with nine strikeouts last Sunday.
The Rangers played the final night game at their ballpark before moving across the street to a new stadium next season. A day game Sunday wraps up the 26th and final season at the stadium that opened in 1994 as The Ballpark in Arlington.
Odor raised his batting average from .202 to .204, still the lowest among the 136 major league qualifiers.
Yankees leadoff hitter DJ LeMahieu went 0 for 3, his average slipping two points to .329. He trailed White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson (.337) for the major league lead. Anderson didn't play in the first game of Chicago's doubleheader before going 0 for 2 in the nightcap.
The Yankees led 1-0 after Aaron Judge tripled on a towering flyball to the leftcenter gap in the first and scored on a sacrifice fly by Brett Gardner. They didn't score again until Didi Gregorius had a three-run triple with two outs in the ninth.