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Major League Baseball
Tampa Bay 6, Texas 4
When: 3:05 PM ET, Sunday, October 2, 2016
Where: Globe Life Park in Arlington, Arlington, Texas
Temperature: 82°
Umpires: Home - Ramon De Jesus, 1B - Mike Winters, 2B - Mike Muchlinski, 3B - Mark Wegner
Attendance: 37015

ARLINGTON, Texas -- The Tampa Bay Rays aren't playing any more October baseball, but they continue to have success in the month.

The Rays scored twice in the 10th inning to beat the Texas Rangers 6-4 on Sunday. The win ended the season for the Rays, who are now 20-13 in October regular-season games.

The Rangers still have plenty of October baseball to go. Despite the loss, Texas will have home-field advantage throughout the postseason as they host Baltimore or Toronto in the American League Division Series starting Thursday.

They should be well rested as the Rangers used 15 position players and seven pitchers Sunday.

It was the seventh Rangers pitcher than the Rays had the most success against. Richie Shaffer, Alexei Ramirez and Curt Casali each had hits to start the 10th inning off Tanner Scheppers (1-1). Shaffer scored on a wild pitch and Ramirez came around to score on Casali's double as the Rays won the season series 4-2.

"It was a good win on the last day," Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash said. "Long game, back and forth, but a nice win. I'm happy with our fight (this year) but not the performance. There's a big difference between having fight and going out and performing and getting it done. We've got to get better at that. We have every intention of that. We will."

The 10th-inning rally came against Scheppers, who is fighting for a postseason roster spot with the club. He hadn't allowed a run in his last four outings before Sunday.

"They got base hits and I lost," Scheppers said. "Up until today I had pitched good. It just didn't work out today."

Erasmo Ramirez, the 14th pitcher in the game, picked up his second save of the season.

Texas forced extra innings on Hanser Alberto's single off Alex Colome (2-4) in the ninth.

Tampa Bay finished with 13 hits. Ramirez matched a career high with four and Logan Forsythe, Shaffer and Casali each had two on a back-and-forth Sunday.

"Something we've talked about it so many times is just inconsistency," said Rays third baseman Evan Longoria, who went 1-for-5 with a run. "But it was nice to finish with a win today. We gave up the lead late and came right back in the next inning and picked up a couple runs."

The Rays led 2-0 in the third and 3-1 in the fourth after an infield single from Luke Maile.

The Rangers cut the lead to 3-2 on Jonathan Lucroy's homer in the bottom of the fourth, but the Rays got that run back in the seventh on an RBI single from Ramirez. The single snapped a scoreless-inning streak for the Texas bullpen at a club-record 35 1/3 innings.

The Rays couldn't hold the lead, though, as Brad Boxburger walked four batters in the eighth, with his walk of Jurickson Profar forcing in a run.

While the Rays stuck with their starting lineup throughout the game, the Rangers used 15 players as they subbed out their regulars.

Texas starter Martin Perez allowed three runs in three innings. Tampa Bay starter Chase Whitley was charged with two runs in four innings.

Texas manager Jeff Banister didn't let Sunday put a damper on a 95-win regular season in which the Rangers fell one win short of matching the franchise high.

"Obviously, I'm extremely proud of our guys, all of them, what they poured into the regular season, starting back during the offseason, starting back at the last game of the season last year, how we walked away, and the implications that that had and how these guys have responded to that, and then entering spring training, the focus on competing," he said. "That was our focus, that we were going to compete in everything and every situation."

NOTES: Texas manager Jeff Banister said the club is still undecided if it will go with seven or eight relievers in the American League Division Series. ... The Rangers ended the season with a 60-31 record against teams that are .500 or better. The .659 winning percentage is the best in club history and the highest winning percentage in the majors since Seattle in 2001 (.676). ... Tampa Bay 3B Evan Longoria played his 160th game of the season on Sunday. He's one of three current big leaguers to have played in at least 160 in four consecutive seasons, joining Adrian Gonzalez and Ichiro Suzuki. ... Tampa Bay hitters came into the game with 1,474 strikeouts, which assured them the second-highest total in American League history. Houston batters struck out 1,535 times in 2013.
Top Game Performances
Starting Pitchers
Tampa Bay   Texas
Chase Whitley Player Martin Perez
No Decision W/L No Decision
4.0 IP 3.0
4 Strikeouts 2
6 Hits 7
4.50 ERA 6.00
Hitting
Tampa Bay   Texas
Alexei Ramirez Player Jonathan Lucroy
4 Hits 2
1 RBI 1
0 HR 1
5 TB 5
.800 Avg 1.000
Team Stats Summary
 
Team Hits HR TB Avg LOB K RBI BB SB Errors
Tampa Bay 13 0 19 .310 19 8 5 3 0 0
Texas 11 1 14 .275 26 14 4 6 2 2