Series Preview: Rangers at Indians

After a week of late nights on the West Coast, the Rangers are going to do their best to get their games in early for the next three days. Texas and Cleveland will play the first two games of their three-game set at 6:05 p.m. and cap it off with an odd 11:05 a.m. start on a getaway day that should give the Rangers plenty of time to make it back to Arlington for a vital series with the Red Sox.

But Texas’ focus for the moment is on Cleveland, and for good reason: despite their 48-63 record, the Indians have won four of five and are four games over .500 since the All-Star Break. It’s the first time the teams have met since their season-opening series in April that Texas swept, outscoring Cleveland 29-14 (almost ten runs a game!) in the process. But it’s a much different Indians team the Rangers will have to face this time around. Two of the three starters Texas saw, Cliff Lee and Carl Pavano, were dealt — along with many, many others — for prospects, so if you need name tags to keep the new faces straight in Cleveland, you’re not the only one.

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Keys, Please: A Look At Five Important Aspects of Rangers-Angels AL West Showdown Series

ANAHEIM, Calif. - Before we begin this look at some of the potential story lines of this weekend, vote in our little poll, please. And while looking at the simplistic question consider all the reasons there might be some doubt about which game this weekend is the most important. I’ll provide my own answer and reasoning in The Depot.

The Rangers head into yet edition of MOST IMPORTANT SERIES OF THE SEASON, but this three-game set against the AL West-leading Angels does have real meaning since it comes with less than 60 games to go in the season, a point that marks the start of the real pennant race. And while  the Rangers are dueling with the Angels, wild-card leading Boston will be hosting the New York Yankees. So, there is baseball of importance to the Rangers playoff chances on both coasts.

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Series Preview: Rangers at Angels

Even if they don’t own the ML’s best record, it’s hard to deny what the Angels have been saying for two months. They’re the best team in baseball. Los Angeles is 35-13 since June 12, a record made all the more unfathomable when you consider the club is 27th 26th in the majors in ERA. The normally pitching-heavy Angels have had to do it with an offense that has been without their big guns for a while. Losing Vlad Guerrero, Juan Rivera, and All-Star Torii Hunter took some pop out of a lineup already lacking power, but L.A. has parlayed a .289 team batting average into 5.71 runs per game, both ML-bests.

Erick Aybar hit .414 for the month of July. Bobby Abreu wasn’t far behind at .380.  Kendry Morales just took home AL Player of the Week honors, and Abreu one-upped him by claiming the Player of the Month title. Vlad is back (again) and Mike Napoli is embracing his role as a DH. Things are going so well in L.A. that Gary Matthews Jr. feels validated by the .668 OPS he’s posted since replacing Hunter in July. Maybe a tad premature.

But the Rangers will still have their hands full with a three-game series at Angel Stadium, and by Sunday night, Texas could be as close as 1.5 games and as far as 7.5 games from the AL West lead.

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Series Preview: Rangers at Athletics

If you were grumbling about the late finish the Rangers got Friday night, you’re in for a long week. With the team on the West Coast for a four-game series in Oakland –  and a subsequent three-game series in Los Angeles — the Rangers are slated for four 9:05 p.m. CST starts in the next five days. You might want to pick up a few extra coffee filters on the way home from work.

There is a silver lining: the games shouldn’t be lacking in excitement. With the Rangers four games behind the Angels, seven games in as many days against division opponents could significantly alter the landscape of the AL West by Sunday. The Rangers get the benefit of starting with Oakland who, at 44-60, is tied for the third worst record in the AL and have gone through their share of growing pains recently. With the Athletics dealing Matt Holliday and shortstop Orlando Cabrera before the trade deadline and sending a slew of young pitchers to the mound over the next four days, the Rangers hope those pains continue.

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Series Preview: Mariners at Rangers

When the Rangers played four games in Seattle just before the All-Star break, they had to face three of the AL’s toughest starters: Felix Hernandez, Jarrod Washburn, and Erik Bedard. The other pitcher Texas drew was righty Brandon Morrow, who was optioned to triple-A Tacoma two days after his start. The Rangers went 1-3 in the series, scoring more runs in the lone win (6) than in all three loses combined (5). I’ll let you guess which of the aforementioned they beat.

This time around, the Rangers will again have to play Seattle four times in as many days, but the M’s three-headed pitching monster is down to two with the news that Erik Bedard has been placed on the DL after trying to pitch through a sharp pain in his shoulder. Maybe not the best idea for a guy that has never accrued 200 innings in a season and failed to break the century mark last year. And the guys slated to start games one and two don’t quite live up to Seattle’s AL-leading 3.87 team ERA. Jason Vargas has hit a wall since a entering June with a sub-2.00 ERA, going 1-3 while allowing 7.11 runs per nine in his last six starts. Garrett Olson has struggled to keep the ball on the ground — and out of the bleachers — posting a 5.37 ERA for the year and allowing 15 home runs in 65.1 innings. That should leave the homer-happy Rangers licking their chops, for better or worse.

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Series Preview: Tigers at Rangers

When the 2007 season started, Armando Galarraga was a Frisco RoughRider and Tommy Hunter was still playing college baseball at Alabama. Galarraga made the jump from double-A to triple-A to the majors that year, posting a 6.24 ERA in one start and two relief appearances for Texas. The Rangers drafted Hunter in June and sent him to their short-season affiliate in Spokane.

A matter of months later, in the offseason before 2008, the Rangers designated Galarraga for assignment to make room on the 40-man roster for Jason Jennings. The Tigers claimed Galarraga and stuck him in the rotation for most of the season. He posted a 13-7 record with a 3.73 ERA in 178.2 innings. Cue the grumbles. Hunter was fast tracked to the majors in ’08, moving from high-A to double-A to triple-A in a season without a noticeable hiccup in his performance. He did not fare as well in his big league debut, however, allowing 20 runs in 11 innings for an ERA of 16.36. Cue the groans.

But all was not as it appeared. Galarraga was a 26-year-old rookie with an unsustainably low batting average on balls in play (BABIP) that kept his ERA lower than it should have been. Hunter was a 22-year-old prospect who had logged less than 200 minor league innings and was still awaiting a twist of fate that would introduce him to the cutter that would change his pitching repertoire. And here we are. Galarraga, despite lowering his ERA by nearly a run over his last four starts, is giving up 4.82 runs per nine innings and has a WHIP of 1.49, while Hunter has been arguably the Ranger’s best starter in July, going 2-0 with a 1.05 ERA in three starts.

So as the two young righties prepare to face off in Arlington tonight, the edge would seem to go to the current rather than the former Ranger. Unless you take Texas’ 0-6 record in ’09 against Detroit into account. And the fact that, unlike the Rangers’ previous opponent, the Tigers actually have something to play for.

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Series Preview: Rangers at Royals

The Rangers got a much needed day off Thursday after flu-like symptoms left five players out or affected for their series finale with the Red Sox.

The Royals got a much needed day off Thursday after they spent the previous two nights doing their best impression of the ’07 Rangers, and not just because Kansas City has five graduates of that Rangers club on their 40-man roster. The Royals led the Angels 5-4 heading into the sixth inning Tuesday, but allowed four unanswered runs to fall 8-5 in the first game of a doubleheader. The nightcap saw KC jump out to an early 2-0 lead, only to get hammered 10-2. And in trying to avoid the sweep, the Royals held firmly to a 6-2 advantage through six innings in the series’ final game, but gave up two in the seventh and five in the eighth to lose yet again.

In other words, the Royals haven’t been doing the Rangers any favors lately. But with a three-game series ready to begin at Kauffman Stadium tonight, that might be about to change.

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Series Preview: Red Sox at Rangers

When the Rangers went to Boston back in June, they managed two wins by sending Kevin Millwood and Vicente Padilla to the mound, both of whom shut the Red Sox down over seven innings of work. Texas’ only loss in Beantown came when Derek Holland was matched against a near perfect Jon Lester. Now that the Sox are in Arlington for a three-game series, the Rangers plan to send Millwood and Padilla back out for starts, with 23-year-old Tommy Hunter going in between. On the surface, it seems like matchup that would favor the Rangers, at least based on what happened a month ago. And Texas won’t even have to face Lester.

But what they will have to face just might be even worse. The Red Sox will start veteran John Smoltz tonight against Millwood. Although Smoltz is just 1-2 with a 5.40 ERA, he’s coming off the best start of his short season, allowing just one run over five innings against the Royals while striking out seven. Smoltz is seventh among active players with a 3.27 career ERA, a number that he’s lowered since turning 40 in 2007. When he’s healthy, he’s still tough. And that’s just the first course.

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Series Preview: Twins at Rangers

The All-Star break seemed to come at a good time for the Texas Rangers. They lost three of their last four games to the division-rival Mariners to end the first half after starting the year 5-0 against Seattle. They fell 1.5 games back of the Angels in the AL West, the furthest from first they’d been since April. A few days off could’ve given the team a chance to recompose and to regain some of the momentum that had them leading the division for much of the first three months of the season.

But before the Rangers even made it back on the field for a three-game series with Minnesota, they had already lost another half game in the standings. The Angels got a head start on the second half with a 6-2 win over Oakland last night, their fourth straight win after sweeping the Yankees before the break. Yet even in the face of what is probably the most important stretch of games Texas has played this year, the Rangers are confident that they’re finally ready to contend for their first division title in a decade.

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Series Preview: Rangers at Mariners

Not only did the Rangers finish off their third series win in three tries against the Angels last night, but they did it against Los Angeles’ three best pitches: Jered Weaver, John Lackey, and Ervin Santana.

And while that’s still an impressive feat (especially on the road), it would’ve been even more impressive last year when Lackey and Santana were pitching well. But neither of the Angels top starters from 2008 have found their form yet after starting the year on the DL, and the Rangers took advantage. Now, as they prepare to start a four-game set with the Mariners in Seattle tonight, they’ll have to do it against some of the AL’s toughest hurlers. Felix Hernandez ranks in the AL top ten in virtually every pitching category you can think of. Brandon Morrow struggled in the bullpen, but has steadily improved since the Mariners put him in the rotation. Despite a 5-6 record, Jarrod Washburn has the sixth best earned run average in the league and features a pitch called “the dolphin” that completely handcuffed the Baltimore Orioles on Monday. And injury-prone Erick Bedard has a better ERA than any AL pitcher not named Zack Greinke, although he doesn’t qualify for the ERA title yet because he’s missed five starts already.

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Series Preview: Rangers at Angels

It’s pretty simple: come Wednesday night, somebody will have first place all to themselves.

The Rangers and the Angels are tied atop the AL West after both teams won Saturday and Sunday, and whoever gets the best of the three-game series in Anaheim that gets underway tonight will have at least a one game lead to brag about as the All-Star break nears.

Tonight’s game would seem to be one the Rangers have a great chance to win. They’ve won five straight, the offense has broken out in a big way, and Kevin Millwood takes the mound with his 2.80 ERA and a chip on his shoulder from being left off the AL All-Star roster. The only problem is the other guy on the mound probably feels snubbed too.

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Series Preview: Rangers vs. Rays

Newsflash: BJ Upton and Carl Crawford are fast.

As in fast enough to combine for 69 steals in Tampa Bay’s first 80 games. That’s good enough for the duo to put Tampa 4th in steals in all of Major League Baseball. By themselves. As a team? Oh, the Rays have managed a humble 121 steals, which gives them the ML lead by 42. Tampa stole as many or more bases in the month of May than 22 teams have stolen all season. Scratch that newsflash. It should read: The Tampa Bay Rays are fast.

So the Rangers will certainly have their hands full keeping Upton, Crawford and company corralled over their weekend series with the Rays. And the Tampa outfields have a lot more to offer than just their speed, too.

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Series Preview: Rangers vs. Angels

When the Rangers and Angels last squared off in Arlington, Texas had a 1.5 game lead in the AL West heading into the series. After a three-game sweep, the Rangers expanded their lead to 4.5 games. Josh Hamilton was healthy and Vlad Guerrero was not. The offense was hitting. That seems like so long ago.

Now, the Angels take a 1.5 game lead into a three-game set at the Ballpark. Josh Hamilton isn’t healthy and Vlad Guerrero, however ineffective, is at least back in the lineup for Los Angeles. The offense was one-hit on Sunday by Chad Gaudin, who entered the game with a 5.60 ERA. And despite the fact that it’s not even July, it might be time for a statement series

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Series Preview: Rangers vs. Padres

The Rangers kick off a three-game series against the Padres in Arlington tonight, and they have a few reasons to be happy. For one, they’ve won two games in a row and reclaimed sole possession of first place in the AL West. And inconceivably enough, they actually got a little good luck during last nights’ 12-inning win over the Diamondbacks.

After facing a Cy Young candidate in each of their last two series, the Rangers have the good fortune of facing three Padres starters who have given up 87 earned runs in 158 innings, which equates to a 4.96 ERA. That’s not great anywhere. It’s definitely not good in the NL. And considering that 82 of those 158 innings were played in the very pitcher-friendly confines of Petco Park, it’s just downright bad. So Ranger hitters need to be ready, and maybe even be a little more like Milton Bradley. The Milton Bradley of last year, of course.

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Series Preview: Rangers at Diamondbacks

Be prepared. It might get ugly.

As the Rangers and Diamondbacks get a three-game series underway tonight in Phoenix, both teams are looking to rebound from a rough weekend. The Rangers were swept in San Francisco, scoring only seven runs in the process. The D-Backs were swept by Seattle, plating just eight runs. Yikes.

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