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Rangers the heavyweights in ALDS after knocking off Blue Jays in 14 innings

Joe Lemire
Special for USA TODAY Sports

TORONTO — The Texas Rangers hand out their own player of the game award in the clubhouse, a replica world heavyweight title belt, that sat prominently — and unexpectedly — in the locker of Hanser Alberto six hours after the first pitch of Game 2 of their American League Division Series.

Mike Napoli, left, drove in the tying run in the eighth inning while Hanser Alberto drove in the winning run in the 14th for the Rangers.

The 22-year-old reserve infielder entered the series with two at bats since the end of August, only saw the field because of an injury to third baseman Adrian Beltre in Game 1, made an error that cost his club two unearned runs in the second inning and became hero with a borrowed bat he didn’t ask to use.

That error, however, was just one-seventh of the way into a playoff classic in which Alberto lined a game-winning single into right-center off Jays reliever LaTroy Hawkins as Texas won 6-4 in 14 innings to take a 2-0 series lead.

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“You know, I've been 0-4, a couple strikeouts, but in the postseason everybody's really important,” said Alberto, who had a sacrifice fly as well. “I just looking for fastball every time, so finally I get it, put a good swing and thank (Rougned) Odor because he's hustling, that's the whole matter.”

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Odor scored that run — his second of the game and fifth of the series — moments after a long replay reviewing whether he had been tagged out at second after advancing on Chris Gimenez’s single. The New York replay official confirmed the safe call, much to the booing chagrin of Jays fans.

“I was safe,” Odor said. “I know I never got off the base.”

Odor had homered and reached base three times in Game 1 to earn the title belt, which he presented to Alberto in the celebratory postgame clubhouse. The game-winning hit merited the award, but partly because it’s impossible to split it five ways, to the relievers who threw seven shutout innings against the most potent offense in baseball.

“It's not surprising that somebody at the end of that bench or end of that lineup contributes to what we've got going on because that's how we play the game,” Texas manager Jeff Banister said.

“It defines the way our season’s went,” first baseman Mitch Moreland said, before later adding with a chuckle, "(Shin-Soo) Choo told me I couldn’t celebrate because I only played seven innings.”

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Mike Napoli pinch hit for Moreland in the eighth and promptly delivered a game-tying RBI single off Toronto’s top left-handed reliever, Brett Cecil — and then Napoli subsequently played seven innings in the field in the 4-hour, 57-minute marathon that ranked in the top-10 longest postseason games of all-time and required 14 pitchers to record 84 outs.

Texas lefty Jake Diekman and righty Shawn Tolleson each threw two innings in relief of starter Cole Hamels, with Diekman retiring all six batters he faced for the second straight game thanks to his 100-mph gas.

“I didn’t throw too many pitches (in Game 1), and I feel like, in this atmosphere, you can just feed off the crowd,” Diekman said of the second straight nearly 50,000-fan sellout. “Every game is the most important game of the year. That just jacks you up a little bit.”

While the Blue Jays made their first playoff appearance in 22 years with a runaway division title, the Rangers only clinched the AL West on the season’s final day and had a losing record as recently as Aug. 13.

The benefit and peril — depending on the vantage point — of the division series is its brevity. These were the two hottest clubs in the AL over the last two months, and now the Jays are heading to Texas while having to win three straight games. Only twice in 29 tries has as team lost the first two games of the division series and then won three straight to take the series.

“It won't be easy, they got a great team over there,” Toronto manager John Gibbons said. “They outplayed us both games.”

The Rangers even outplayed the Jays without major contributions from their top four hitters. During the season, Beltre, Moreland, Choo and Prince Fielder had the four highest OPS’s, yet those players are a combined 3-for-20. Then again, it’s been a balanced lineup all season. No player scored 100 runs, drove in 100 or had more than 23 home runs; only Fielder had more than 163 hits or batted better than .287.

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The real spark plugs this series have been Odor and Delino DeShields, the rookie leadoff hitter who went 3-for-7 while scoring twice in Game 2 and is now 5-for-11 in the ALDS.

“I'm not really thinking about how we score, how much I'm producing,” DeShields said. “Just going up there trying to have quality at-bats and make an impact as much as I can. When I get on base, good things happen.”

DeShields has been such a catalyst, in fact, that it was his bat Alberto used for the very first time to smack the game-winning hit.

“I don’t know,” Alberto said, “just good swing.”

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