Minnesota Twins 11, Texas Rangers 4

by PegNews wire

Texas drops its third in a row.

The Texas Rangers fell back to their losing ways Tuesday night in Minneapolis, giving up big innings in a lopsided 11-4 loss to the Twins. The loss was the Rangers third straight, and dropped them to 22-25.

Photo not provided by the Texas Rangers

The Rangers's losing streak is starting to get a little ugly

The loss also assured that the Rangers will not win their eighth straight series. With two games left, the best the Rangers can hope for is a tie.

Rangers starter Doug Mathis was unfortunately to blame for the loss, in his first start since being called up from Triple-AAA to replace the injured Kevin Millwood. Mathis did not last past the third inning, an inning in which he gave up 7 runs. Mathis ended up giving up nine runs, six of them earned, in just two-plus innings of work. Mathis walked four and struck out none, and raised his ERA to 10.12.

Reliever Franklyn Germán, who suffered losses in all three of his last three appearances, pitched well in mop-up time. Germán pitched the next three and two-thirds innings of scoreless relief, giving up just two harmless hits.

Down 9-0 until the seventh, there wasn't much to brag about for the Rangers offense. They did manage an impressive seventh inning, during which they continually rotated hitters on and off base, scoring three runs off three RBI singles. Despite having 11 hits in the game, the Rangers did not have a single extra-base hit all night, the first time that has happened this season.

Posted by Todd M.