Texas Rangers 5, Cleveland Indians 3

Rangers ride strong pitching to important road win.

The Texas Rangers benefited from great starting pitching Friday night in Cleveland, defeating the Indians 5-3. The win improved Texas to 78-53, four and a half games ahead of the surging Oakland A's for first place in the AL West. Cleveland fell to 55-77.

Photo not provided by the Cleveland Indians

The Indians bats, they are sick.

Rangers starter Ryan Dempster was excellent, allowing just one run --and unearned run aided by two Elvis Andrus errors in the fourth-- on two hits over six innings. Dempster, who walked three while striking out seven, had a no-hitter going until the fourth and improved to 4-1 with the Rangers since coming over from the Chicago Cubs. Joe Nathan got the final two outs for his 28th save.

Indians starter Ublado Jimenez was not as fortunate, giving up four runs over five-plus innings and falling to 9-14 on the year. Cleveland has now lost six straight and finished August with a 5-24 record.

Texas opened the scoring in the top of the first when Ian Kinsler singled, stole second, then scored on Adrian Beltre's RBI single. Texas extended its lead in the third when Josh Hamilton walked, moved to third on Beltre's single and then scored on Michael Young's two-out single to make it 2-0. One batter later, David Murphy singled in Beltre for the 3-0 lead.

After Cleveland broke the shutout with an unearned run in the fourth, Texas struck back in the top of the sixth. David Murphy led off the inning with a triple, then watched from third as Geovany Soto struck out and Mitch Moreland grounded out. Kinsler then doubled in Murphy for a 4-1 lead, chasing Jimenez from the game.

young would later add a two-out RBI single in the seventh that scored Beltre, the fourth two-out RBI for the Rangers in the game. Beltre finished with four hits, one less than the entire Indians lineup, and is currently hitting .472 in his last nine games.