Rangers Sweep Braves with Blowout

Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images

July 27, 2025

Rangers 8, Braves 1

ARLINGTON, Texas (Jul 27) — The Texas Rangers completed their second consecutive sweep after beating the Atlanta Braves, 8–1, Sunday afternoon. The whole lineup made contributions in this game, most notably Josh Smith, who hit a two-run shot in the second. They finish this nine-game homestand with a sparkling 8–1 record. From here, the Rangers will embark on a six-game road trip beginning on Monday with three against the Los Angeles Angels with first pitch scheduled for 6:38 Pacific at Angel Stadium. Right-hander Jacob deGrom (10–2, 2.28 ERA) will get the ball for the Rangers, and the Angels have yet to announce their starting pitcher as of press time.

As for the Braves, they will head out on the second leg of their road trip with a three-game set against the Kansas City Royals starting Monday. First pitch is scheduled for 6:40 pm Central at Kauffman Stadium. Righty Spencer Strider (4–8, 3.72 ERA) will take the mound for the Braves, while longtime veteran lefty Rich Hill (0–1, 1.80 ERA) will make the start for the Royals.

Rangers Bats Stay Hot

The Rangers scored early in the bottom of the first against Braves starter Bryce Elder. Back-to-back walks to Josh Smith and Corey Seager opened the frame. Marcus Semien grounded into a 5–4 force play to advance Smith to third. Seager was tagged out at second. Semien stole his 10th base of the season on the next play.

Up next was Adolis Garcia, who drew a walk. Two batters later, Wyatt Langford plated Smith and Semien with a double hit sharply to left.

The Braves got one back in the top of the second off Rangers starter Jack Leiter. He issued back-to-back free passes to Drake Baldwin and Austin Riley to start the inning. Later in the inning, Sean Murphy scored Baldwin with a ground-rule double that went down the left field line.

The Rangers tallied two more runs in the bottom of the second. Jonah Heim lined a one-out single to center. Smith followed with a noise-inducing two-run blast to right, his ninth of the year.

They added three more in the bottom of the third. Garcia led off with an infield single that Nick Allen had trouble with at short.

On deck was Joc Pederson, recently retured from the IL, who grounded to short. Langford drew a walk and Evan Carter reached on a hit-by-pitch. Garcia and Langford scored moments later thanks to a single up the middle by Josh Jung.

Next in line was Jonah Heim, who scored Carter with a single to center.

What Went Right for the Rangers

The Rangers didn’t take their foot off the gas on Sunday. They had plenty of scoring chances and they capitalized on most of them. Smith’s dinger in the second got the whole line moving, and the crowd of 35,914 was grateful to see it.

What Went Wrong for the Rangers

The only thing that went wrong for the home-nine was the RBI ground-rule double by Murphy in the top of the second.

Leit Workload

Rangers right-hander Jack Leiter picked up his seventh win and fourth quality start of the season after tossing six innings of one-run ball on a career-high 100 pitches .His line was 2 H, 1 R-ER, 3 BB, 7 SO. Sunday marked the second time this season for Leiter to toss back-to-back quality starts. He surrendered a bloop ground-rule double down the left field line to Murphy in the second to account for the Braves’ lone run off of him.

At one point, Leiter retired 10 consecutive Braves from the second through fifth innings. Over his last five starts, Leiter is 3–1 with a 3.00 ERA with 32 strikeouts and a .221 OPP BA, lowering his season ERA from 4.55 to 4.09. His overall record improves to 7–6 with an ERA of 4.09.

Elder’s Afternoon

Braves starter Bryce Elder shouldered the loss in his 17th start of the season. His final line was 2 2/3 IP, 6 H, 8 R-ER, 4 BB, 3 SO, 1 HR, 63 pitches/34 strikess. It was his second career start against the Rangers. He surrendered the second-most earned runs during an outing in his career. His 17 home runs allowed in 2025 rank seventh-most in the NL. He gave way to Dylan Dodd in the third after allowing the pair of RBI singles to Jung and Heim. Elder fell to 1–6 in his career when walking four or more batters. On the flip side, he is six strikeouts away from 300 for his career. With the loss, he now owns a record of 4–7 with an ERA of 6.29.

Bochy’s Postgame Comments

After the game, Rangers manager Bruce Bochy elaborated on this recent 8–1 stretch. “It’s hard to top what we did over these past couple weeks,” he said. They played so well. The pitching was there, and the offense and overall defense was there as well. Going into the trade deadline, we’re going to do what we need to do to keep up this momentum as a team.”