Rangers @ "Devil" Rays

[Molina00]

Guess I got a little behind on the Indians series. Oh well. After taking 2 ouf of 3 in Cleveland to pull to .500 (again), the Rangers moved on to Tampa Bay looking to surpass the .500 mark. Scott Kazmir has other plans. Kazmir absolutely dominated the Ranger offense allowing only 3 hits and 1 run through 7 innings while striking out 10. He improved to 4-1 with an amazing 1.50 ERA on the season as a result.

The Rangers offense was supplied by Ian Kinsler who drove in all three Ranger runs, including a 9th inning 2-run homerun, his 7th homerun of the year.

The loss dropped Texas to 26-27 and marked the third time in the last week and a half they reached the .500 mark and failed to surpass it.

[love_that_reefer]

5 more RBI for Hamilton to give him 58 on the year. Padilla looked sharp too. Good game.

[Molina00]

Padilla got himself into a little bit of trouble but still had a decent outing striking out 10 over 6 to improve to 7-2 on the year, although his ERA got knocked up to 3.67.

It was all about the big inning for the Rangers in last night's 12-6 win over the Rays. Texas scored 7 runs over the first two innings against TB starter Sonnanstine, but then were held scoreless for the next 6 innings. The bats came alive again in the 8th resulting in five more Rangers runs including a Josh Hamilton grand slam, his 13th homerun of the year, and he finished with 5 RBI on the day putting him at a major league leading 58 on the season.

Ian Kinsler also stole his team leading 15th base of the year, three times more than 2nd ranked David Murphy who stole his 5th base in this game.

[Molina00]

Once again the Rangers reached the .500 mark (for the 4th time in the last two weeks), and once again they failed to pass it. A day after scoring 12 runs in a win over Tampa Bay, starter Matt Garza very nearly dominated the Rangers lineup allowing just 2 runs on 4 hits while blowing away 10 through 8 innings of work. Trailing 5-2 in the 9th, Troy Percival came on to close it out for the Rays. The Rangers managed one run off him, but he got the 2nd out before falling to his knees with an apparent problem with his left leg. Percival threw one practice pitch before immediately heading to the dugout. Dan Wheeler came on in relief and got the final out to notch his first save of the season and sealed the Rangers their first losing series since they were swept by the Tigers on April 22nd-24th.