ATLANTA _ Elvis Andrus, Nomar Mazara and Rougned Odor swatted home runs Monday night, and Andrew Cashner allowed two runs in six innings as the Texas Rangers opened a three-game series against the Atlanta Braves with an 8-2 victory.
Andrus' homer, his 19th of the season, opened the scoring in the first, and Mazara and Odor connected in a three-run fifth. Odor's 28th homer of the season was a two-run shot, and he also drove in a run in the fourth with a sacrifice fly.
Cashner's quality start was his 15th of the season, matching Yu Darvish for the team lead. Cashner has posted a quality start in 14 of his past 20 outings and has pulled his record to 9-9 after it was at 3-7 entering July.
Cashner had only two 1-2-3 innings, in the third and the sixth, as the Braves collected six hits and two runs against him. Nick Gardewine tossed a perfect seventh inning in his second big-league appearance, and Nick Martinez, working in relief with the fifth spot in the rotation not needed until next week, logged the final two innings.
The knuckleball of R.A. Dickey didn't fool the Rangers much. They scored seven of their eight runs against Dickey, the former Rangers pitcher, and Andrus and Mazara went deep against him. Joey Gallo had an RBI triple, and two of Carlos Gomez's hits against Dickey were doubles. Odor homered off of Matt Wisler two batters after Dickey was replaced in the fifth.
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