Murphy leads Rangers past Tigers

Arlington, TX – David Murphy had two homers among his four hits and drove in five runs Wednesday night, leading the Texas Rangers to a wild 13-9 win over the Detroit Tigers.

Texas was out-hit 17-16 -- Roy Oswalt gave up a career-high 13 in six innings -- but captured its second in a row to win the three-game series.

Ian Kinsler added a two-run homer and Adrian Beltre had three hits for the Rangers, who moved to 10-2 in their last 12 games to remain 4 1/2 ahead of the Angels in the AL West.

Oswalt (2-0) still walked off with his second straight win for the Rangers despite the shaky outing. The 34-year-old righty, who made his season debut against the Rockies last Friday, allowed five runs while walking two and striking out six.

"It was a good team win. The guys gave me some runs to work with and kept adding on," said Oswalt.

Quintin Berry, Alex Avila and Jhonny Peralta had three hits apiece for the Tigers, but they lost for the fourth time in their last six games. Doug Fister (1-5) gave up nine runs -- eight earned -- in just 4 1/3 innings to take the loss. He allowed nine hits, a walk and struck out five.

The Rangers scored two runs in the eighth after Detroit had pulled within 11-9 in the top of the inning and Joe Nathan kept the Tigers off the board in the ninth.

Earlier, Beltre sparked a four-run Rangers rally in the second inning with a leadoff single. He went to second on Michael Young's base hit and scored when third baseman Miguel Cabrera threw wide of first on a Nelson Cruz grounder.

Murphy followed with his first homer of the game, a three-run blast to right that made it 4-0.

The Tigers got a run back in the third after Ryan Raburn led off with a double and scored on Cabrera's single up the middle, and they pulled within 4-2 on three straight base hits by Avila, Peralta and Brennan Boesch in the fourth.

Murphy knocked a first-pitch fastball from Fister over the right-center field wall with one down in the fourth for his second homer of the game and ninth of the season. Mike Napoli followed with a single and Kinsler made it 7-2 with his ninth homer, a two-out shot to center.

The Tigers, clawing back all game long, pulled within 7-5 on Berry's RBI triple and Peralta's two-run double in the fifth. Fister came out with two on and one down in the bottom of the fifth and Murphy greeted Duane Below with an RBI single. Leonys Martin's two-run triple pushed Texas' lead to 10-5.

Young's single scored Elvis Andrus in the sixth to make it 11-5, but the Tigers made a game of it again with a four-run eighth, starting the rally against Martin Perez in his major league debut.

All four runs were charged to Perez, but only one was earned. Raburn scored after a wild pitch and an Austin Jackson single, and Jackson came home later when Kinsler and Perez were late on a hook-up at first on Prince Fielder's grounder.

Fielder tackled Perez on the play after the two collided near the bag, with the hulking Tigers first baseman trying to hold the youngster up. Perez came out and Delmon Young and Avila hit RBI singles off Mike Adams.

Kinsler reached second base on a pop-up off Octavio Dotel to start the bottom of the eighth when Raburn inexplicably lost sight of the ball behind the infield. He scored on Andrus' bunt single after Cabrera's bad throw to first and Beltre added an RBI double for a 13-9 lead.

"The only frustrating thing about a game like this is that when you score that many runs, you're supposed to win," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "We didn't help ourselves defensively, but our guys kept coming back."

Game Notes

The Rangers improved to 5-2 in the season series. They are 4-2 on a 10-game homestand that concludes with four against the A's beginning Thursday...The Tigers are 2-4 on a 10-game road trip that continues with four at Tampa Bay starting Thursday.