Rangers Lose Two Of Three To White Sox

Texas continues it's struggles against teams with winning records after the White Sox took the series 2-1. Alexei Ramirez (above) knocked in two crucial RBI in the final game of the series, securing a White Sox win, and went 8 of 12 from the plate for the series. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

It's hard to tell from one day to the next if these Texas Rangers (48-33) are for real.

While they dominated the have-nots of the National League in the month of June, claiming the longest winning-streak for the franchise in 18 years, Texas still boasts a measly 12-19 record this season against teams currently above .500.

The latest team to call the Rangers' bluff, the Chicago White Sox (42-38), have now won 18 of it's last 23 games after the 2-1 series victory over Texas. The White Sox held Texas to only nine runs for the series as the Rangers' bats seem to have gone cold in the month of July. Texas has scored less than four runs in every game so far in July, this after only four such games in all of June.

"We're not pressing, we've just cooled off with the bats and we're not holding onto a lead when we get it," said Josh Hamilton, who hit two home-runs and knocked in one-third of the total Rangers' RBI (three) for the series. "We're leaving some runners on base. Hopefully we can pick things up again."

Texas stranded three runners on base in each of the first two games of the series and then doubled that total in the final game, leaving six runners stranded Sunday. For the series, Texas was 2-10 with runners in scoring position.

The one bright spot in the series was Tommy Hunter's game-two gem in which he pitched seven-plus innings of one-run baseball. Hunter scattered nine hits, walked only one and struck out three on the way to his fifth victory of the season. The Rangers have won all six of Hunter's starts (Hunter is 5-0) and his ERA for the season is a sparkling 1.98.

"Pound the strike zone, not make mistakes in the middle of the plate, executing, keeping the ball in play, doing everything you like a pitcher to do," said manager Ron Washington of Hunter's performance. "When you don't have overpowering stuff, that's what you do."

All things considered, Texas was outscored in the series by a slim margin (11 to 9) and was facing an extremely hot team in the White Sox which has won seven of it's last eight series.

Things get a bit easier for the Rangers as the Cleveland Indians come to town for a three game set. Cleveland is 32-49 this season, the worst record in the American League Central Division, and are in the bottom-10 in the league in almost every statistical category.

It all gets started Monday night with a scheduled 7:05 p.m. start time. Omar Beltre (0-0, 6.75 ERA) will make the second start of his career against Cleveland's Aaron Laffey (1-2, 5.55).

News and Notes:

• At 48-33, Texas has it's second best record after 81 games in franchise history. Texas was 49-22 at the half-way point in 1996.
• Neftali Feliz blew only his second save of the season, Friday night, as he allowed two runs on three hits that gave the White Sox a 5-3 win.

(Portions of this article were taken from The Associated Press)