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<\/a>Texas lost to Philadelphia 2-0 last night, dropping to 2-4 on its seven-game, seven-day road trip.\u00a0 The Rangers are now eight games below .500 since outfielder Josh Hamilton injured his shoulder on April 11 and continue to struggle offensively.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019d like to put some runs on the board,\u201d said Rangers manager Ron Washington.\u00a0 \u201cWe faced two of the best the game has to offer.\u201d\u00a0 The good news is, the pitching staff has been up to the challenge recently, as Saturday\u2019s contest marked the 10th consecutive game that the unit has allowed four runs or less.\u00a0 Texas hasn\u2019t been swept in a series since losing all three from September 3-5, 2010 at Minnesota.\u00a0 The club is 8-9 in day games this season.<\/p>\n
Rangers starting pitcher Matt Harrison is 3-4 with a 4.27 ERA and is scheduled to make his ninth start this afternoon.\u00a0 The left-hander is winless in his last five outings, after tallying victories in each of his first three.\u00a0 Harrison has registered an 0-1 mark and 6.23 ERA in six career games against the National League.\u00a0 He has been quite effective on the road in four appearances, going 2-1 with a 3.42 ERA, as opponents are hitting just .225 against him.\u00a0 Sunday will be his first career outing versus Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia has proven victorious in the first two games of this series, but the offense has been struggling to find its way by not scoring four runs or more in a game since May 13.\u00a0 Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard\u2019s recent problems at the plate has been a main contributor to the lack of success, but he managed to snap an 0-for-23 slump last night.\u00a0 \u201cI felt better,\u201d Howard commented.\u00a0 \u201cI had a couple of hits and just missed the last ball.\u201d\u00a0 The club has an all-time interleague record of 108-129, including a 55-66 mark at home.\u00a0 \u00a0 With last night\u2019s win, the Phillies improved to 5-0 in their five all-time games against the Rangers at Citizens Bank Park.<\/p>\n
Phillies starting pitcher Roy Oswalt is 3-1 with a 3.09 ERA in six starts this season, but hasn\u2019t picked up a victory since April 21.\u00a0 The right-hander tossed five strong innings last time out at St. Louis, giving up just a single run and scattering seven hits over five innings, but received just a run of support.\u00a0 Oswalt has tallied a 1-0 record and 3.00 ERA in two home outings, managing to issue just two walks and register 12 strikeouts in 12 frames.\u00a0 In 12 career starts versus the Rangers, he stands at 4-6 with a 4.54 ERA.<\/p>\n
Bettors will likely back the Rangers due to their 5-0 record after dropping the first two games of a series, while the Phillies are 1-6 in their last seven interleague home games versus a left-handed starter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Texas Rangers and Philadelphia Phillies play the final contest of a low-scoring three-game series Sunday at Citizens Bank Park Texas Rangers at Philadelphia Phillies Texas lost to Philadelphia 2-0 last night, dropping to 2-4 on its seven-game, seven-day road trip.\u00a0 The Rangers are now eight games below .500 since outfielder Josh Hamilton injured his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":15580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[1752,4861,98,1528,996,771],"class_list":["post-15758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-citizens-bank-park","tag-matt-harrison","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-roy-oswalt","tag-ryan-howard","tag-texas-rangers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15759,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15758\/revisions\/15759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}