Sunday, June 8, 2008

Texas Rangers 6, Tampa Bay Rays 3

By Pegasus News wire

ARLINGTON — The Texas Rangers avoided a series sweep Sunday afternoon at Rangers Ballpark, finally getting one over on the Rays in a 6-3 win. The Rangers are now 32-33 on the year.

Photo not provided by Milton Bradley, Texas Rangers

Milton Bradley's showing the world that he's got serious game

Rangers starter Doug Mathis --who has had an up-and-down rookie season, to say the least-- gave the Rangers the quality pitching they needed to win against one of the major league's best teams this season. Mathis lasted just five-plus innings, but gave up only two runs off of five hits, and lowered his still-astronomically-high ERA to a mere 7.52.

Mathis was relieved by Frank Francisco, Eddie Guardado and C.J. Wilson, who combined to give up just one run over the remaining three and two-thirds innings of work.

The Texas lineup went old school in terms of offensive production, relying heavily on home runs to provide most of their offense. David Murphy, German Duran and Ramón Vázquez all hit home runs, contributing four of the Rangers' six runs on the day. Vázquez went 2-for-4 with the solo shot and a run scored, and is providing plenty of pop at the bottom of the lineup with a .331 average and 15 RBI in 43 games this season.

Several other Rangers had multi-hit games as well: Ian Kinsler went 2-for-5, Marlon Byrd went 2-for-3 with an RBI, and catcher Gerald Laird went 2-for-4 with an RBI. Milton Bradley continued his hot hitting streak by going 1-for-2 with three walks, scoring two crucial runs.

Michael Young did not play, and his hitting streak remained intact at 22 games.

Posted by Todd M.

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