(AP) NEW YORK — The Texas Rangers defeated the New York Mets 2-1 on Tuesday night when Mitch Garver’s home run broke a scoreless tie in the seventh inning.

For the Rangers, who started the day trailing Seattle in the AL West by a game, Ezequiel Duran had an RBI single, and Andrew Heaney recovered from a poor patch with seven strikeouts in 5 1/3 innings of shutout ball. Following a season-worst eight-game losing streak that led them to fall out of first place for the first time since early April, they have won three of their last four games.

In the sixth inning, with two outs, Chris Stratton (2-1) entered the game and retired cleanup batter Pete Alonso on a foul fly before striking out rookie slugger Francisco Varez. It was Stratton’s first victory for Texas following his July 30 trade from St. Louis, in which starting pitcher Jordan Montgomery was also acquired.

Will Smith pitched a flawless eighth, teaming up with first baseman Nathaniel Lowe for a challenging glove-to-glove flip on Jeff McNeil’s drag bunt. Brock Burke struck out two in a one-hit seventh.

In the ninth inning, Aroldis Chapman gave up a two-out home run to Mark Vientos before coming out on top to earn his second save with Texas since being acquired from Kansas City in late June.