Nathan Eovaldi pitched seven scoreless innings, Dustin Harris had a homer and two-run double in his second MLB game, and the defending champion Texas Rangers closed out their season with an 8-0 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Sunday.

Nathaniel Lowe also homered, and Josh Smith drove in two runs for the Rangers, who were eliminated from postseason contention on Sept. 20. Texas finished the season with its first sweep of a three-game series since late August against the Chicago White Sox.

The Rangers finished 78-84, one season after going 90-72 and charging through the postseason on the way to their first World Series title in franchise history.

Angels rookie starter Jack Kochanowicz (2-6) gave up three runs on six hits over seven innings in the 11th start of his career after making his big league debut July 11. The Angels finished with the most losses in franchise history at 63-99 after going 73-89 last season.

Texas scored first when Lowe hit a leadoff double to center in the fourth and Jonah Heim knocked him in one batter later with a single to left.

Harris delivered a two-run double in the seventh inning to right field on his first career hit for a 3-0 lead.

The Angels nearly broke through in the seventh, but Matt Thaiss was thrown out at home by Rangers left fielder Wyatt Langford. Thaiss was trying to score from second on a single by Michael Stefanic.

In the eighth inning, Langford led off with a single before Lowe homered to right, his 16th of the season, for a 5-0 advantage. Lowe had five hits and five RBIs over the last two games of the season.

Harris’ first career home run, in the ninth inning off Roansy Contreras, just cleared the wall in right field. Smith added a two-run double later in the inning off Contreras.

Eovaldi (12-8) gave up four hits over seven innings, with a walk and five strikeouts. Jose Leclerc pitched a scoreless eighth inning with two strikeouts, and David Robertson handled the ninth inning, closing out the 12th shutout of the season for Texas.

The Angels drew a crowd of 35,145 for the season finale and finished the season at 2,577,597, slightly down from their total attendance of 2,640,575 in 2023.

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Rangers: Spring training opener, Feb. 21 vs. Royals at Surprise, Arizona.

Angels: Spring training opener, Feb. 22 vs. Mariners at Tempe, Arizona.

8:17 AM on Sep 29, 2024 CDT

ANAHEIM — Few Texas Rangers prospects in recent memory arrived with higher expectations than Wyatt Langford.

The Rangers 2023 No. 4 overall pick hasn’t disappointed, especially in the second half of the season. And most notably, he has steadily progressed into the type of hitter the organization envisioned during a torrid final month of the season.

In fact, few Rangers have put together a better month than the 22-year-old Langford.

He added to it again Saturday in the Rangers’ 9-8 comeback win over the Los Angeles Angels at Angels Stadium. He hit his fourth homer in the past six games. Nine of his 16 homers have come in his past 30 games.

Langford is the first Rangers player with 22 or more runs, seven or more home runs, 19 or more RBI, and six or more stolen bases in a month.

Only four MLB rookies had previously posted similar totals in a single month, including Nomar Garciaparra (August 1997), Mike Trout (July and August 2012), Atlanta’s Ronald Acuna Jr. (August 2018), and Arizona’s Corbin Carroll (June 2023).

After falling behind 7-1 in the third, the Rangers added runs in the fourth and sixth before scoring twice in the eighth and four in the ninth to finish their largest comeback win of the season. The previous largest rally was five runs in their home finale on Sunday.

It was arguably Andrew Heaney’s worst start of the season, but he’ll be celebrating anyway. Heaney, the Rangers most durable starting pitcher with a team and career-high 31 starts in 2024, was charged with a season-high seven runs on a career-tying high 10 hits in four innings and dropped to 5-15 with the loss. Heaney, 33, however, earned a $1.5 million incentive bonus by reaching 160 innings pitched. He started the game with 156.

Adolis García, who hit his 25th home run in Friday’s win, left Saturday’s game after running out a groundout in the sixth inning. García came up limping on his left knee, which has been bothering him of late.

Garcia is the seventh player in Rangers history with four or more 25-homer seasons. He’s the fourth Rangers player with 25 or more homers in at least four consecutive seasons. He joins Juan Gonzalez (5, 1995-99), Rafael Palmeiro (5, 1999-2003), and Mark Teixeira (4, 2003-06). García is

one of five 5 American League players with 25 or more homers in the past four seasons, joining Houston’s Yordan Alvarez, Boston’s Rafael Devers, Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and the New Yor Yankees’s Aaron Judge.

Rangers right-hander Nathan Eovaldi (11-8, 3.96) faces Angels right-hander Jack Kochanowicz (2-5, 4.01) in the season finale at 2:07 p.m. Sunday.

You can follow Stefan Stevenson on X @StefanVersusTex.

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