ANAHEIM, Calif. -- The Rangers have played a week's worth of games and, yes, just as you suspected, Joey Gallo is averaging a strikeout per game.

Here's what you probably did not expect however:

He has more walks (eight) than strikeouts (seven). He has more RBIs (eight) than games played. And he's changing games with regularity.

On Thursday, the Rangers began their road schedule for the season. Four batters into the game with the Los Angeles Angels, Gallo delivered a three-run homer. The Rangers led by five before the first inning was over and cruised to an 11-4 win over an Angels team that has the best player in the game and not much else going for it.

The Rangers, meanwhile, improved to 5-2. It's notable because of this: They spent exactly one day over the last two seasons as many as three games above .500. Though starter Edinson Volquez struggled with command again, the homers from Gallo and Ronald Guzman in the first inning and a bloop three-run double from Shin-Soo Choo in the fifth kept the Angels at a safe distance.

"This first week has gone well," said Gallo, who has a .978 OPS through the first seven games. "It's gone well personally, but also for the team. We are doing things people didn't really think we were capable of. We knew we were, but a lot of people didn't."

Gallo has been a key reason for the hot start. In four of the Rangers' five wins, he's either had the hit that gave the Rangers the lead for good or scored the run that accounted for the win. On Thursday, his three-run homer just four batters into the game put Angels starter Matt Harvey under immense early pressure. He never recovered.

"He's one of the most talented players in the game," Rangers manager Chris Woodward said. "Sometimes he doesn't even have to swing the bat to be able to change a game."

This is what Gallo can do. He can change the entire complexion of a game.

He is doing it by refusing to chase the pitch above the belt that was such a dangerous temptation for him from the time he first came up to the big leagues. Because of it, he's put himself in counts more favorable to hitters. And he's seemingly acknowledged that those counts are only favorable if he takes whatever the pitcher is providing.

Often, what has been offered is a free base in the form of a walk. He is accepting them with greater consistency. His walk Thursday gave him eight for the season, including six in the last three games.

"I can't let the pitcher dictate my at-bats," Gallo said. "I know I swing and miss a lot, but I don't miss that much when I swing in my zone. I never really thought in the past about working counts to put myself at an advantage. I always tried to do things myself."

It's easy to see the plate discipline show up with the greater walk frequency. But it hasn't simply been about taking pitches. The homer Thursday came on the first pitch he saw from Harvey, a fastball down the middle.

"If a team is throwing strikes, we should be ready to hit," Woodward said.

Said Gallo: "If they throw strikes, I'm going to try to hit it. I'm not trying to take. I'm trying to make smart decisions."

For the first week of the season, he has.

And largely because of that, the Rangers are somewhere they've only seen for a day in the last two years.

Twitter: @Evan_P_Grant