<\/strong> Twins starting pitcher Francisco Liriano is 11-7 with a 3.45 ERA in 24 starts this season and the team has won six of his last seven outings.\u00a0 He is coming off a no decision effort, giving up five runs and six hits over five innings of work against the White Sox.\u00a0 The left-hander is 5-4 with a 4.33 ERA in 12 road starts, surrendering two home runs over 68.2 frames.\u00a0 He will be making his 17th nighttime start, producing a 7-4 record and 3.98 ERA, while giving up just three long balls.\u00a0 In five career appearances (three starts) versus the Rangers, Liriano has posted an even 1-1 mark and 4.74 ERA, including a 1-1 record and 4.50 ERA at Rangers Ballpark.<\/p>\n Texas has maintained its 8 1\/2-game lead over the Oakland Athletics due to its current four-game winning streak and is in the middle of facing five straight southpaws.\u00a0 The Rangers are 20-18 on the season against left-handers, but going into today\u2019s contest, they\u2019ve lost five of six against them.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t feel like we have a weakness against anybody,\u201d manager Ron Washington said.\u00a0 \u201cI know the numbers say we don\u2019t do well against them, but we\u2019ve gone out there and tattooed left-handers.\u201d\u00a0 The club is 11-5 as a home favorite of -150 to -175 this season (+280) and the total stands at 8-7 O\/U in those contests.\u00a0 It\u2019s also important to note that the Rangers are 7-1 in their last eight games versus AL Central opponents.<\/p>\n Rangers starting pitcher Cliff Lee is 10-7 with a 3.09 ERA in 22 starts this season, but comes in on a two-game losing streak.\u00a0 In those outings, he has allowed 14 runs and 19 hits over 13.1 innings of work.\u00a0 The left-hander is 4-2 with a 2.81 ERA in 10 home starts, issuing just a single free pass and collecting 74 punch outs in 80 frames.\u00a0 He has made five starts this month, tallying a disappointing 1-3 record and 5.80 ERA, after finishing the previous two months with a combined 6-2 mark.\u00a0 In 18 nighttime outings this year, Lee has produced a 9-4 record and 2.79 ERA compared to a 1-3 mark and 4.55 ERA during the day.\u00a0 The former fourth-round selection of the Montreal Expos has made 18 lifetime starts versus the Twins, going 8-3 with a 3.40 ERA, surrendering just eight home runs in 111.1 innings.<\/p>\n Bettors will find that the Twins are just 1-4 in their last five games as a road underdog and the under is 5-2-1 in Liriano\u2019s last eight in that situation.\u00a0 Texas is 36-15 in its last 51 games as a home favorite and the under is 4-0 in the club\u2019s last four home games versus southpaws.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Rangers look to finish off a sweep against a team that they could matchup against during postseason play. Minnesota Twins at Texas Rangers Minnesota still leads the AL Central division by 3 1\/2 games despite being in a position of getting swept for the first time since dropping three straight at Milwaukee from June […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":5989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[56,102,919,2616,240,2272,771],"class_list":["post-6563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-al-central","tag-cliff-lee","tag-francisco-liriano","tag-jason-kubel","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-ron-washington","tag-texas-rangers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6563","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=6563"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6565,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6563\/revisions\/6565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/cliff-lee-rangers-150x150.jpg\")
Minnesota still leads the AL Central division by 3 1\/2 games despite being in a position of getting swept for the first time since dropping three straight at Milwaukee from June 22-24.\u00a0 It\u2019s the first time that the Twins have lost three straight games since July 7-10 when the club lost four in a row. The Twins had won 21 of 27 before arriving in Arlington, but the offense has managed to produce just six runs in this series.\u00a0 \u201cWe were swinging good coming into this series, but they\u2019ve pretty much shut us down,\u201d said Jason Kubel.\u00a0 The three losses to the Rangers in this series has now dropped the team a half-game behind them in the standings, which would be important in establishing home-field advantage in the playoffs.\u00a0 The club is still 14-8 in August (+510) and come in with a 25-18 mark against left-handed starters (+540).\u00a0 The Twins have also posted a .273 batting average against southpaws this season, which is the second highest average in the AL.<\/p>\n