Feldman Turns In Another Quality Start, Hamilton Returns From DL With A Bang.

Despite the news of a returning Josh Hamilton from the disabled list, the real story of the night was pitcher Scott Feldman. For the 4th time this season, Feldman turned in a quality start for Texas. Matter of fact, Feldman was cruising for 6 1/3 innings until the home plate umpire decided to get involved.

Having not allowed a run, Feldman had strike 3 on Franklin Gutierrez but home plate unpire Marty Foster didn't see it that way. One pitch later, Gutierrez stroked a single into center, then stole 2nd base. The next hitter, catcher Kenji Johjima hit a soft liner into right field, tying the game at one run a piece.



Feldman was visibly upset while being from the game but, having thrown 110 pitches, needed to sit. Rookie Derek Holland came in to retire the final two hitters of the inning, preserving the tie.

In the bottom of the 7th, Mike Young drilled a hard shot into right field (his 3rd hit of the game) setting up some heroics from the returning Josh Hamilton, who hit an opposite field homerun, giving Texas the lead.

Andruw Jones then legged out an infield single, followed by a Marlon Byrd double, whihc set up a deep sacrifice fly by Nelson Cruz, giving Texas a 4-1 lead. Chris Davis (who had given Texas a 1-0 lead earlier in the game via a solo homerun) drilled a hard shot off the glove of Seattle first baseman Russell Branyan. An error but it scored Texas' 5th run of the game. Jarrod Saltalamacchia then hit a hard shot into right field, picking up an RBI triple. Salty scored on an infield single by Elvis Andrus. After an Ian Kinsler base hit, Mike Young walked, loading the bases for Josh Hamilton, who ended Seattle's misery by striking out.

Leading 7-1, Derek Holland went 1 2/3 innings, throwing strikes, forcing Seattle's hitters to put the ball in play. He was rewarded with several weakly hit groundballs. Holland continues to progress and could find himself in the starting lineup before the end of the season.

Eddie Guardado came in to pitch the 9th for Texas, closing out the game and giving Texas a 2 1/2 game lead in the AL West.

The win was the 1st of Derek Holland's big league career.

Millwood Good, But Not Good Enough. Padilla Makes Historic Start.

Kevin Millwood can't seem to catch a break. Despite playing with one of the top scoring offenses in baseball, they don't seem to show up when Millwood is on the mound.

Despite giving Texas 7+ innings and allowing only three earned runs, Millwood took the loss as the offense was only able to muster a couple of runs thanks to RBI basehits by Ian Kinsler and Elvis Andrus.

"I didn't think I had the best stuff in the world, but it was good enough to compete," said Millwood, who was charged with three earned runs on seven hits."It just wasn't good enough to win. I just didn't make the key pitches when I needed to."

Carlos Quentin, Jermaine Dye and Paul Konerko all gave Chicago RBI singles, putting just enough on the board to pick up the win, 3-2.

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In the rubber match of the 3 game set again Chicago, Texas' Vicente Padilla turned in a historic start, going 7 innings and allowing only 1 hit. With his performance, he became the first player in Rangers history to throw 2 consecutive one-hit starts.

"I was keeping [my pitches] low, and they were swinging at it," Padilla said through an interpreter. "My fastball was moving a lot."



"[Maybe] three starts ago there were questions about his velocity -- and the thing about Padilla, you don't know if that's by design or if that's him," Rangers manager Ron Washington said. "He can pitch. He can manipulate the baseball. He can do some good things. It just took him a while to get going."

The offense was led by Hank Blalock, who went yard for the 8th and 9th times on the year. It was the 7th time in his career Blalock has had a multi-homer game.

Chris Davis added his 8th homerun of the season.

"Those guys grind it out, man, especially those at-bats in the fifth inning against Colon," Washington said. "[We] had a couple walks there, and then we chopped some balls and we made some things happen, which is what you have to do."

Texas leaves Chicago winners of 5 of their last 7 games.

Harrison Throws A Gem, Shuts Out Chi Sox

It looks as though Matt Harrison has figured it out. Crediting a decision to waste less time in between pitches, Harrison has been ace-like ever since with Friday's game in Chicago being the best of the bunch.

Harrison threw a complete game shutout against an offense stacked with All-Star caliber talent, striking out five and walking only one batter. Harrison has now thrown 19 consecutive scoreless innings.

"I just kept pounding the fastballs in and out and using my changeup," Harrison said. "If they made an adjustment, I would make one, but they didn't, so I just kept doing the same thing I did last start."



Harrison's offense helped him out early, spotting him a run in the first and two more in the second. Ian Kinsler and Omar Vizquel both had 2 RBI nights, pacing Texas for 6 runs on 11 hits.

If Harrison can keep pounding the strike zone the way he has his last three starts, Ron Washington thinks his best may still be yet to come.

"Harry's got good stuff. He's always had good stuff. He'll tell you [that] he played on the edges. [He's] stopped playing on the edges and [started] making them swing the bat and put the ball in play."

Rangers Rocked In Finale, Leave Oakland With A Split

Brandon McCarthy was cruising right along for three innings. He had spoken openly about his desire to give Texas at least seven strong innings the way Millwood and Padilla had done the last two games.

Jack Cust had other plans for McCarthy's day.

After loading the bases in the 4th, McCarthy served up a grand slam homerun to Cust, Oakland's biggest power threat.

"It feels good," Cust said. "In that situation, bases loaded, nobody out, there's not a lot of pressure on the hitter. You've just got to basically hit a ball in the air. That's what I was trying to do. I wasn't trying to hit a home run."



After a solo homerun by Chris Davis made the score 4-1, Oakland came back in the bottom of the 5th and hit another homerun, this time a 3- run shot off the bat of the struggling Matt Holiday. Brandon McCarthy did not retire a batter in the 5th inning.

"I feel like it's coming along pretty good," Holliday said of his swing. "The last couple days I felt pretty good. I definitely think that confidence is an important part of this game, and when ... five or six guys have good at-bats, confidence is high for all those guys, and it carries over."

Ron Washington wrapped the game up into a nice, neat package.

"They beat us today," Washington said. "A grand slam home run ... a three-run home run. They swung the bats today."

Oakland starting pitcher Trevor Cahill pitched well, stringing out Texas' hits, keeping them from striking with men on base. Today's win was the first of his Major League career.

"I just went after them today. When I did got behind, I didn't give in," said Cahill.

Despite a late charge which saw Texas plate three runs in the top of the 9th off reliever Brad Ziegler, the Rangers offense looked confused and out of sorts.

"We let him slip away," said Marlon Byrd, who went 2 for 3 with 2 doubles. "First time facing a young guy ... he had different stuff, a knuckleball, a little slider, pretty good changeup. We need to make adjustments the next time we face him. If we give Brandon some runs early, things might have been different. He could have pitched more aggressively. Pitching has been keeping us in there, it's time for the offense to pick things up."

Feldman Solid As Rangers Take Over 1st Place In The AL West

Kris Benson may well have come off the disabled list but Scott Feldman is doing everything in his power to keep Benson's spot in the starting rotation.

Yesterday in Oakland, Feldman pitched a gem of a game, throwing six solid innings, allowing only two earned runs on 89 pitches. Since some struggles early in the season, Feldman is keeping the ball down, working quickly, and getting ground balls. He is now 2-0 with a 3.24 ERA in three starts and opponents are hitting .186 off him as a starter. They hit .355 off him as a reliever.

"He was really pounding the ball inside, especially to lefties," Athletics outfielder Travis Buck said. "He threw a lot of cutters, and when it's 91-93 and he's throwing it for strikes, that's a tough pitch to hit. And he did a nice job by showing his curveball and change early in the game, so it wasn't like you could just sit on one pitch. It was just tough to square balls up."

Feldman then gave way to rookie Derek Holland who pitched two scoreless innings, getting the first hold of his young career.

The 9th inning belonged to Frank Francisco who picked up his ninth save of the season, yops in the American League.



Texas got it's offense going thanks to a solo homerun in the 1st by rookie short stop Elvis Andrus. In the top of the 4th, Marlon Byrd singled into right field, followed by a line drive double by the scorching Nelson Cruz. David Murphy pushed Byrd across with a sacrifice fly. Chris Davis then plated Cruz with an RBI single to center.

Despite surrending two runs in the bottom of the inning, Feldman and Co. made the three runs stand up. Manager Ron Washington seems pleased with the progress the pitching staff has made since the beginning of the season.

"I hope it continues," Washington said. "We're getting better. We're progressing. Those guys are taking the ball and they're taking a lot of pride in what they're doing. The tone is set with starting pitching. We're playing great defense and we're getting timely hitting. The guys in the clubhouse deserve a lot of credit, especially the pitchers."

Texas now has a season high five game winning streak and, save for the first few games of this season, find themselves in first place of the AL West for the first time since June 14th, 2006. Veteran Michael Young wants everyone to keep things in perspective.

"First place is nice, but it means more to me that we're playing good baseball," said Young, who extended his current hitting streak to 10 games on Wednesday. "We're pitching extremely well and we're playing good defense. Those are two things we were really bearing down on in Spring Training. We knew our offense could score runs in bunches."

Texas Goes To Seattle, Gets Sweep

Texas rode into Seattle with a modest 2 game winning streak and left out with their third straight winning series and their first sweep since the opening series of the season.

In game one, Texas got 2-run homers from both Chris Davis and Michael Young off Seattle ace Felix Hernandez, while Kevin Millwood hung in there for the Rangers, giving them 7 1/3 innings of work, leaving the game with a one run lead.



Frank Francisco made the run stand up, thanks in large part to an acrobatic defensive play by Elvis Andrus, pulling to one game over .500.

"It was just a good team win," Young said. "Obviously, it was a big game for both teams. Hernandez had great stuff, off-the-chart stuff. But Milly battled through it and gave us a huge effort as he always does. The bullpen did a good job and we got some timely hits off Felix."

In game two of the short series, Vicente Padilla pitched a gem, throwing 8 innings of one-hit baseball, surrendering only one unearned run. Padilla had struggled early in the season but has shown signs of breaking out of his funk, compiling an ERA of 3.05 in his last 3 starts.

"He was outstanding," Rangers manager Ron Washington said. "He really was. That was what we needed. He made all his pitches, moved the ball around in the strike zone, changed speeds at the right time and worked fast. The key was throwing strikes in all parts of the strike zone."



But Erik Bedard was almost as effective for the Mariners and the game was forced into extra innings where, in the top of the 10th, Texas exploded for six runs, capped by a grand slam by catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia.

"Marlon and Cruz got the two-out RBI hits," Saltalamacchia said. "That took the pressure off me, and all I had to do was look for a good pitch to hit. This was huge. It was that we came into Seattle and swept. Now we've got to go on to Oakland and keep it going."

Texas Fights Off The Rain, Wins Another Series

After dropping a tough one 4-3 to Chicago in the first game of Texas' 3-game set, the Rangers got after in strange game 2.

With thunderstorms covering up the night skies, the Rangers and White Sox were forced to sit through three seperate rain delays.

Down 1-0 in the bottom of the third, Hank Blalock (perhaps taking a cue from Rangers play-by-play announcer Tom Grieve who correctly predicted the outcome) clubbed his 7th homer of the season, a 3-run shot into the bullpen that gave Texas a 3-1 lead.



Texas then came back in the bottom of the fourth and put another six run on the board, thanks to key doubles by David Murphy (who continues to hit his way out of a slump), Nelson Cruz and Chris Davis. Ian Kinsler, Omar Vizquel, Hank Blalock and Marlon Byrd all added RBI hits in the inning as the Rangers built a 9-1 lead.

"It was a situation that we wanted to go out there and score as many runs as we can," Blalock said.

Play was halted once again as the rain began to fall, forcing everyone back into the dugouts.

When play resumed, so too did Brandon McCarthy's dominance of his former White Sox team. After all was said and done, McCarthy went five innings, allowing only one run, striking out three and retiring the final 12 batters he faced.

"I think I finally settled in and attacked the zone," McCarthy said. "I just let the ball go. I was just pitching for contact and attacking the zone."

Texas reliever Luis Mendoza allowed a grand slam homerun in the 6th to Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski but they were albel to get no closer, falling to Texas 9-6.

"That was a long one," third baseman Michael Young said. "It's good to get out of there with a win. When the game got tough with the rain delays, we had some relievers who had never been in that situation before."

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In the rubber match between the Rangers and Sox, Matt Harrison turned in his 2nd consecutive quality start, giving Texas five innings of shutout baseball and picking up his 2nd win of the season.

"He made pitches when he had to make pitches," Rangers manager Ron Washington said. "Give them credit. They made him work. He only gave us five innings, but they were five pretty good innings."

Harrison was spotted a lead early as Ian Kinsler lead the game off with his 9th homerun of the season.

"I'm not trying to hit a home run in my first at-bat," Kinsler said. "I'm trying to drive the ball every single at-bat. I like doing that, though. Hitting one out of the ballpark in the first at-bat takes some air out of the other team and helps your starting pitcher relax, knowing he already has a 1-0 lead."

Kinsler added a RBI single later in the game and is now hitting .337 on the season.

Michael Young broke out of a mini-slump, adding an RBI single of his own. Nelson Cruz had a three hit night and Elvis Andrus added 2 base hits and sacrifice. This was the fisrt night Andrus hit in the no. 2 spot in the batting order.

"I like it," Andrus said. "All my career I have been hitting second. I feel comfortable there and we got the win."

The win over Chicago had to be particularly sweet considering the pitcher they defeated: former Rangers top prospect John Danks. He he is now 1-2 with a 5.30 ERA in three career starts against the Rangers.



"It's always been just another start," said Danks, traded to the White Sox after the 2006 season. "I have more at stake than worrying about what these guys are doing or thinking or trying to impress someone. I have my own career to worry about. I really don't care what these guys think. I'm just going out there to try to give us a chance to win."

Texas pulls to 12-12 on the season and now heads to Seattle for a two game series with the Mariners.