ARLINGTON, Texas — With several players breaking out of slumps, Sunday's 11-3 win was the closest the Rangers have come to the kind of offense envisioned for the club in 2013.
The Rangers got top-to-bottom contributions from the lineup in scoring their most runs in a game this season. In all, the Rangers scored 23 runs in sweeping the three-game series from the Mariners.
"We still have some guys in the lineup trying to search, but we were able to put some things together the past two days," manager Ron Washington said. "We put 11 hits on the board today and it was throughout the lineup, and that was a good thing."
It was especially good for players like Mitch Moreland, Elvis Andrus and Adrian Beltre.
Moreland was 1 for his last 20 prior to his fourth-inning homer. The 422-foot, two-run shot gave the Rangers a 3-1 lead.
It also gave Moreland some personal satisfaction after having hit the ball hard lately, but without the reward. Although Moreland has hit three homers, he has just nine hits on the season and is batting .164.
"It's so early, I'm not trying to look at numbers, I'm looking at the process," Moreland said. "If I stick with my approach and my plan, then it will be there when it needs to be. It's so early right now, you can have a good game and have your average jump 80 points. I'm just trying to focus on the positives of each at-bat."
Andrus got a positive result with his first at-bat, a single. Andrus had been hitless in his last 13 at-bats and carried a .194 average into Sunday.
Beltre was 1 for 10 in his previous three games and was 0 for 3 Sunday when he homered in the fourth inning. The two-run blast help raise his average to .224 on the season.
The Rangers also got a homer from an unlikely source, No. 9 hitter Leonys Martin, who homered for the first time in the major leagues. That got the Rangers on the board in the third inning and Nelson Cruz's grand slam came two innings later.
In all, seven starters got hits, six drove in runs and eight scored.
"It looked like the first couple of innings we were having trouble trying to figure [Seattle starter Aaron] Harang out, and then Marti (Leonys Martin) got us on the board," Washington said. "And then after that, the pitch count started rising a little bit and he made some mistakes and we capitalized. It was nice to have that breakout."
The offensive breakout comes at a good time for the Rangers, who start a three-game series in Anaheim on Monday.
"I still don't think we're close to where we could be, but we definitely took a step forward, for sure, with the runs we put up over the three games here," Moreland said. "If we can keep doing that and keep taking care of business, and our pitching keeps throwing like they are, I think we'll be all right."
Follow Keith Whitmire on Twitter: @Keith_Whitmire
