Duran's Walk-Off Double Seals Texas 5-4 Thriller Over SF
Ezequiel Duran went 3-for-5 with 4 RBI and delivered the decisive blow in the ninth, a ground rule double that scored Burger and pushed Texas past San Francisco 5-4. The win probability swung from 61% to 100% on that single swing of the bat.
Texas jumped on Blade Tidwell early. In the first inning, Nimmo doubled to right to score Pederson and move Seager to third, then Duran singled to right to bring Seager home — a 2-0 lead before San Francisco had even settled in. Tidwell would finish with 5.0 innings, allowing 6 hits and 2 earned runs, and the Giants' offense spent most of the night chasing that early deficit. MacKenzie Gore, meanwhile, was sharp on the other side: 6.0 innings, 3 hits, zero earned runs, 3 walks, and 4 strikeouts. The story of the first six innings was Gore simply not letting San Francisco back in.
The Giants finally cracked the tie in the seventh. Osleivis Basabe launched a 377-foot homer to left, scoring Drew Gilbert and knotting the game at 2-2. It looked like a genuine momentum shift — two runs on one swing, the kind of hit that can flip a ballgame. Texas answered in the eighth when Duran doubled to right again, this time plating both Langford and Seager to make it 4-2. San Francisco wasn't done, though. In the ninth, Bryce Eldridge singled to right to score Gilbert and McCray, tying it at 4-4 and setting up one of the wilder final innings you'll see. Eldridge went 1-for-1 with 2 RBI — every at-bat counted.
Then came the gut punch. With Texas batting in the bottom of the ninth and the game deadlocked, Duran stepped up and hit a ground rule double, scoring Burger and sending Seager to third. The win probability swung from 61% to 100% on that play — game over, 5-4 Rangers. Duran's night — 3-for-5, 4 RBI, two doubles and a single — appears to be the kind of performance that defines a series. Corey Seager added 3-for-4 with 2 runs scored, and Nimmo went 3-for-5 with an RBI to round out a Texas lineup that looked dangerous every time it turned over. Robby Ahlstrom tossed a clean inning of relief with 2 strikeouts to bridge to the finish. San Francisco fought back twice and still couldn't hold it. That's the brutal math of a one-run game.