The Rangers are marked as a home underdog on Saturday afternoon, as they host the best team in Major League Baseball.<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay Rays at Texas Rangers<\/strong><\/p>\n Tampa Bay is currently 2-2 on its current road trip after dropping the series opener at Texas, 9-6, at the Ballpark in Arlington.\u00a0 Friday night\u2019s defeat dropped the team to 26-3 on the year when producing five or more runs at the plate.\u00a0 The Rays are still a dominating 21-7 on the road (+1,400), as only six major league teams have had a better road record after 28 games since 1900.\u00a0 The team has outscored opponents 166-89 away from Tropicana Field.\u00a0 Tampa is now 2-1 this month, but has compiled an impressive 37-18 record over the last three years during June (+1,790).\u00a0 Total bettors need to be aware that the pitching staff has allowed only 198 runs this season, the fewest in the American League (25-28 O\/U).<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Rays SP James Shields if 5-3 with a 3.62 ERA in 11 starts this season (+200).\u00a0 The right-hander has tallied an impressive 74 strikeouts and issued just 15 walks in just over 74 innings of work.\u00a0 Shields hasn\u2019t compiled impressive numbers on the road in his career (21-23, 4.64), but checks in with a 4-1 record and 3.34 ERA in five outings away from Tropicana Field (+290).\u00a0 He notched an 8-6 victory over the Yankees last time out on the road back on May 20, tossing 7.1 innings and allowing four runs (three earned) while allowing eight hits and striking out seven.\u00a0 The 29-year-old is still searching for his first daytime victory of the season, going 0-2 with a 4.74 ERA in four starts under the sun, as hitters are combining to hit .311 against him.<\/p>\n Texas managed to crank out 13 hits on Friday night against a pitching staff that started the night with the best ERA in the AL.\u00a0 The Rangers belted out two more home runs at their home ball park, as they\u2019ve now hit 36 of their 49 round trippers in Arlington.\u00a0 The team is also an impressive 15-7 versus the Rays at home over the past four seasons.\u00a0 DH Vladimir Guerrero entered the series with the fifth-best career batting average against the Rays (200 PA min) and continued his success with a 3 RBI night.\u00a0 Texas has been placed as a home underdog of +100 to +125 for the first time this season, but is 27-23 in this situation over the last three years (+620).\u00a0 Overall at home this season, they\u2019ve produced a solid 19-9 mark (+540).<\/p>\n Rangers SP Tommy Hunter is expected to be recalled from Triple-A Oklahoma City for today\u2019s start, making his season debut.\u00a0 He began his season with 18 consecutive scoreless innings until allowing a pair of runs in the second inning of his fourth start.\u00a0 Hunter has gone 0-2 with a 7.36 ERA over his last three starts.\u00a0 The right-hander has two career starts against the Rays, both coming last season, going 1-0 with a 3.48 ERA.\u00a0 He has a 6-4 career mark with a 4.31 ERA in 12 starts in Arlington and his .226 opponents batting average at home in 2009 was the lowest single-season figure by a pitcher with at least 10 starts at the stadium.<\/p>\n Bettors may become enamored at the chance of playing the Rangers as home underdog on Saturday afternoon, but must be aware of their 5-12 record against winning competition this season (-920).\u00a0 Tampa Bay has also dropped consecutive games on the road just once this season, losing the final two games of a three game set in Oakland on May 8-9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Rangers are marked as a home underdog on Saturday afternoon, as they host the best team in Major League Baseball. Tampa Bay Rays at Texas Rangers Tampa Bay is currently 2-2 on its current road trip after dropping the series opener at Texas, 9-6, at the Ballpark in Arlington.\u00a0 Friday night\u2019s defeat dropped the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[1695,1696,86,150,771,1694],"class_list":["post-3755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-arlington","tag-home-underdog","tag-james-shields","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-texas-rangers","tag-tommy-hunter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3755","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=3755"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3800,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3755\/revisions\/3800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}