After a three-game sweep over the previously sizzling Boston Red Sox, the Rangers are now 20-11 and atop the American League West. Today we’ll look at how they’re getting it done and what this means for the 21 weeks of baseball still ahead.
The New York Yankees had to breathe a sigh of relief last night, as 25-year-old David Phelps got his fourth start of the season against the Texas Rangers and pitched five solid innings, letting the Yankee bats beat up on Ryan Dempster and deliver New York an easy 8-2 win that kept them five games up on the surging Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East. Phelps got the start when staff ace C.C. Sabathia was put on the disabled list. With the rotation heavily dependent on Sabathia, Tampa coming hard and postseason play just seven weeks out, TheSportsNotebook looks at how worried the Yankees need to be.
The Texas Rangers were an out from winning the World Series last year not once but twice and came up short. Can the two-time defending AL champs put that devastation from last October in St. Louis behind them and effectively make another run when division rival Los Angeles raided them for pitcher C.J. Wilson and then tacked on Albert Pujols? TheSportsNotebook sizes up the Rangers based on our regular quartet of measuring sticks—the ability to get on base, hit for power, starting pitching and relief pitching.