ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Jack Leiter struck out 10 in 5 2/3 scoreless innings and Ezequiel Duran tripled home two in a four-run first as the Texas Rangers earned their second series sweep this season with a 6-3 victory Sunday over the reeling Kansas City Royals.
Kansas City (22-37) has lost six in a row and nine of 11. The Royals have won only seven road games, fewest in the majors.
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Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Michael Wacha throws to the Texas Rangers during the third inning of a baseball game Sunday, May 31, 2026, in Arlington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Texas Rangers' Josh Jung connects for a bases loaded single to score Kyle Higashioka and Nicky Lopez during the fourth inning of a baseball game Sunday, May 31, 2026, in Arlington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Texas Rangers' Alejandro Osuna runs the bases before scoring on a double by Kyle Higashioka during the first inning of a baseball game against the Kansas City Royals, Sunday, May 31, 2026, in Arlington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Texas Rangers pitcher Jacob Latz, left, and catcher Kyle Higashioka (11) react after their team defeated the Kansas City Royals during a baseball game Sunday, May 31, 2026, in Arlington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Texas Rangers pitcher Jack Leiter throws to the Kansas City Royals during the first inning of a baseball game Sunday, May 31, 2026, in Arlington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Josh Jung doubled with one out in the first against Michael Wacha (4-3), and Jake Burger drew a two-out walk. Duran hit a shot off the wall in left field that bounced away from Isaac Collins for a 2-0 lead. Alejandro Osuna added an RBI single before scoring on Kyle Higashioka's double to cap the rally.
Jung had a two-run single with the bases loaded in the fourth to make it 6-0. It was his 19th multihit game this season.
Leiter (3-4) allowed two hits while striking out nine through the first five innings. He fanned three in the fourth and struck out the side in the fifth. Bobby Witt Jr. reached base in the fourth when he struck out on a wild pitch.
Witt singled and stole his 17th base in the sixth before Leiter exited after walking Jac Caglianone. Jalen Beeks came in and retired Collins on a lineout to center to end the inning.
Leiter permitted three hits and walked two. Jacob Latz allowed a double to Witt in the ninth before securing his seventh save in nine opportunities.
Michael Massey scored on Lane Thomas' single in the seventh and then hit a two-run homer — his fourth — in the eighth to account for the Royals' runs.
Wacha allowed six runs and eight hits with four walks in five innings.
Royals RHP Luinder Avila will be the opener Monday in Cincinnati opposite Reds RHP Chase Burns (7-1, 1.96 ERA).
Rangers RHP Jacob deGrom (3-4, 3.77 ERA) starts Monday in St. Louis against RHP Michael McGreevy (3-4, 2.98).
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Michael Wacha throws to the Texas Rangers during the third inning of a baseball game Sunday, May 31, 2026, in Arlington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Texas Rangers' Josh Jung connects for a bases loaded single to score Kyle Higashioka and Nicky Lopez during the fourth inning of a baseball game Sunday, May 31, 2026, in Arlington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Texas Rangers' Alejandro Osuna runs the bases before scoring on a double by Kyle Higashioka during the first inning of a baseball game against the Kansas City Royals, Sunday, May 31, 2026, in Arlington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Texas Rangers pitcher Jacob Latz, left, and catcher Kyle Higashioka (11) react after their team defeated the Kansas City Royals during a baseball game Sunday, May 31, 2026, in Arlington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Texas Rangers pitcher Jack Leiter throws to the Kansas City Royals during the first inning of a baseball game Sunday, May 31, 2026, in Arlington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Graham Platner’s wife called reports that her husband had previously exchanged sexually explicit text messages with several women “shameful" over the weekend, the latest controversy to hit the Maine Democrat’s whirlwind Senate campaign.
Platner, an oyster farmer and combat veteran, posted a video taken by his wife, Amy Gertner, who reportedly told his campaign of the text messages last year. In the five-minute video, Gertner avoided speaking directly about her husband's reported texts, dubbing the broader coverage as “gossip" and saying that “being married is hard.”
“I find it really shameful that there’s a group of media outlets and people who are willing to spread gossip,” she said in the informal, selfie-style video where she walked along a road. “No marriage is perfect, and I don't want a perfect marriage. I want my marriage.”
Platner is seeking the Democratic nomination for one of the most closely watched Senate races as Democrats hope to defeat longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins in the party's efforts to win control of the narrowly divided Senate. The Maine primary is June 9.
Genevieve McDonald, a then-campaign staffer for Platner, told the The Associated Press that the candidate was “sexting multiple women while married" and that “the campaign tried to asses that as an election vulnerability.”
The texts were first reported by The Wall Street Journal, which wrote that Gertner had told the campaign in August about the messages, which she had discovered on his phone last year, to make sure they weren't a liability to the campaign. Platner's campaign team reportedly decided that the texts were private and being handled by the couple, who were married in 2023. The two are in counseling, Gertner has said.
Platner's campaign on Sunday did not specifically confirm the text messages to the AP, but issued a statement from Gertner saying the disclosure of the conversations she had with a campaign aide was a betrayal that “deeply hurt.”
“I trusted this person with the most private chapter of our lives — the early days of our marriage before any campaign was on our mind," she wrote.
Platner, who has never held public office, has a gruff, less buttoned-up approach on the campaign trail, fashioned a platform around economic equality and has already had to navigate statements that surfaced from his past.
The candidate had a tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol, which he said he didn't realize until he was several weeks into the campaign. There's also been much attention on his former Reddit posts, which were dismissive of military sexual assaults and used homophobic slurs, for which he has apologized.
Platner's campaign weathered those earlier revelations in what had been considered one of the most competitive Democratic primaries before Gov. Janet Mills dropped out of the race in late April due to a lack of campaign funds. Mills, a two-term governor, had been seen as one of the Democrats' top 2026 recruits when she entered the Senate race before her campaign fizzled out.
Platner has still pulled support from big-name Democrats, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Ruben Gallego as well as U.S. House Rep. Ro Khanna. The latter is scheduled to rally with Platner on Friday, and so far, it appears he hasn't lost any endorsements with this latest texting revelation.
Two Democratic senators on Sunday declined to directly address the topic when pressed by reporters. Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy told CBS' “Face the Nation” that Platner had served his country and community, but “also made mistakes and he has admitted that.”
On CNN’s “State of the Union," New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim sidestepped, too. “With any campaign in the country, the character and the transparency about the different candidates is going to come out,” said Kim, “and the voters are going to decide what they ultimately think."
Barreling forward Sunday, Platner posted a video on X from an event “happening now” where he entered a room to a standing ovation from ecstatic supporters.
Questions over whether additional controversial information about Platner could still surface have added to some Democrats' anxiety over his chances in a general election against Collins, who has represented Maine in the Senate since 1997.
In October, after the revelation that he once had a Totenkopf tattoo on his chest and promptly had it covered, the AP asked him if other scandals were on the horizon.
Platner said he was expecting his opponents were “going to keep dragging things up.”
“They’re going to keep making things up,” he said. “I fully expect people to just lie about me at this point.”
Voters are familiar with the couple's struggles, including with infertility and traveling out of the country to afford IVF treatment, which they've discussed on the campaign trail.
In late April, Platner shared that Gertner had suffered a miscarriage, and he’s discussed his own mental health struggles and the role of his family and therapist in helping.
McDonald initially worked on Platner’s campaign as his political director and resigned a few months later when his now-deleted Reddit posts began surfacing, saying she couldn’t stand behind him as a candidate. She later declined a severance offer from the campaign in exchange for signing a non-disclosure agreement.
On Saturday, McDonald wrote on Facebook that Platner’s campaign had “demanded” she retract her statements she had made to The Wall Street Journal or his team would accuse her of violating the couple's trust. McDonald wasn’t named in the newspaper's article, but after that exchange, she said she made the choice to be publicly named in a New York Times story.
“His consultants greatly overestimate how much I do not aspire to be them,” she wrote on Facebook.
After resigning from Platner’s campaign, McDonald moved to help Democrat Jordan Wood’s congressional campaign in Maine’s second district. McDonald submitted her resignation from Wood’s campaign Saturday morning, according to Wood’s campaign.
Wood endorsed Platner after Mills dropped out.
Bedayn reported from Austin, Texas and Kruesi reported from Providence, Rhode Island.
Graham Platner, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks at an event hosted by Sen. Bernie Sanders in Orono, Maine, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
