ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) -The Texas Rangers are headed to New York and Boston this week with the AL’s best record, a surprising role reversal that Michael Young is keeping in perspective.
“We’re not going to be dumping any champagne on our heads for a good May,” said Young, the Rangers’ longest-tenured player in his ninth season. “But I think the good thing is that we are making a lot of progress and it seems like we are improving all the time.”
The Rangers (30-20) moved to the top of the American League after winning 20 games in May, only the second time in team history Texas won that many games in a calendar month. The Rangers won 21 games in September 1978, the month before Young turned 2.
“That means we played well in May, that’s about it,” second baseman Ian Kinsler said. “We had a good month. It’s a new month now and we need to start over and continue to play well. It’s going to be tough.”
tarts with their first series in new Yankee Stadium, then three games against the Red Sox in Fenway Park.
Then it’s home for four games against Toronto, a 29-win team that is third in the AL East behind New York and Boston, and a three-game interleague series against the Los Angeles Dodgers (35-17), who have the majors’ best record.
“If we go there and play good baseball, our chances of beating them are just as good as anyone else,” manager Ron Washington said. “I see us going out there every day and playing a good game. And at the end of nine innings, we’ll see who put up the most runs.”
For the Rangers, that used to mean always having to try to outslug other teams.
But the pitching has improved drastically, despite starters Vicente Padilla (bruised right shoulder) and Matt Harrison (left shoulder inflammation) both on the disabled list and closer Frank Francisco giving up a ninth-inning homer Sunday in a 5-4 loss to Oakland.
Francisco had made 17 consecutive scoreless appearances this season, his 17 2-3 innings the most by any pitcher without allowing a run. The right-hander hadn’t allowed an earned run in 28 appearances.
Starters have averaged nearly 6 1-3 innings an outing, meaning the bullpen has thrown an AL-low 135 1-3 innings after being the most overworked the last two seasons. The team ERA of 4.46 is in the middle of the pack, nearly a full run below last season.
ong as pitching is keeping us in games, we’ll be fine,” Kinsler said.
Texas still leads the majors with 83 home runs and is fifth with 271 runs scored, 5.42 per game, even with slugger Josh Hamilton (.240, six home runs, 24 RBIs in 35 games) limited by lingering injuries.
Hamilton had an MRI exam Monday for a recurring groin problem and will see a doctor Tuesday before flying to New York. He got hurt two weeks ago when he crashed into an outfield wall making a leaping catch, days after coming off the disabled list and missing 13 games because of strained ribcage muscle sustained when he made another catch running into a wall.
The Rangers said they would be no update on Hamilton until after he saw the doctor.
Two years after they lost 20 games in May and were 19 games under .500 by mid-June, the Rangers now have led the AL West for four weeks. It is their longest consecutive stretch atop the division since the final 139 days in 1999, the last of their three AL West championship seasons.
The other titles came in 1996 and 1998, the only times Texas had more wins through 50 games (31-19).
The Rangers have never won a postseason series, eliminated by the Yankees in each of its postseason appearances. And there has been one winning season (2004) since last making the playoffs.
Maybe Texas is on track to change all that.
orried about it, they probably still think we’re a fluke,” Kinsler said. “We have a long way to go. It was a good month, and it’s definitely something to build off of, something to feel good about.”
How about a fluke?
“We don’t think so,” Kinsler said.
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