Mariners @ Rangers (September 18th-20th)

[Molina00]

Projected Matchups
Game 1: Felix Hernandez (11-13, 4.60 ERA) vs. Kevin Millwood (15-10, 4.47 ERA)
7:05 PM Central on FSN

Game 2: Jarrod Washburn (8-14, 4.58 ERA) vs. Edinson Volquez (1-5, 6.15 ERA)
7:05 PM Central on KDFI

Game 3: Cha Seung Baek (3-1, 3.90 ERA) vs. Robinson Tejeda (4-3, 4.58 ERA)
7:05 PM Central on FSN

Game 1 Matchup Notes
Hernandez: King Felix has struggled on the road going 5-8 with a 5.48 ERA in 15 road starts this season. In 4 starts against the Rangers this year he is 1-2 with a 6.46 ERA. His last start on September 10th was against the Rangers and was his only good start against them this season allowing 1 run in 5.2 innings for a no decision.

Millwood: After 3 pretty solid outtings at home he is finally starting to get the home ERA down. Millwood is now 6-6 with a 5.38 ERA at Arlington this season. He has pitched very well over his last 4 starts going 3-0 with an ERA of 3.00, and is 2-1 with a 4.37 ERA in 4 starts against Seattle.

Game 2 Matchup Notes
Washburn: He is another Seattle starter who has suffered on the road. Washburn has gone 2-9 with a 5.73 ERA in 15 road starts. He has pitched very well in 2 starts against Texas this year though going 0-1 but has allowed just 3 runs in 13 innings of work against the Rangers.

Volquez: After finally getting back on track allowing 2 runs in 5 innings to the Angels, Volquez will be pitching against the team where he had his greatest triumph. He shut down the Mariners over 7 innings for his first big league win on August 12th.

Game 3 Matchup Notes
Baek: This will be Baek's 2nd road start of the season. In his first, against the Devilrays, he gave up just 1 run in 6.2 innings for the win. It will also be his 2nd start of the year against the Rangers. He shutout Texas for 7 innings in his September 8th start for the win.

Tejeda: Robinson has been on fire in September. Over 3 starts this month he has going 1-0 with an incredible 0.44 ERA, allowing only 1 earned run in 20.1 innings of work. On September 9th against the Mariners he gave up 2 runs on 4 hits and struck out 7 over 6 innings in a no decision.

[Molina00]

The Rangers started this series off with a bang. A great outting by Kevin Millwood and a homerun from Nelson Cruz vaulted the Rangers to an 8-1 win over the Mariners.

Millwood went 7 innings allowing just 1 run on 4 hits improving to 16-10 on the season and lowering his ERA to 4.36.

On the offensive side, the top of the order in Matthews and Young were a combined 5 for 9 with 3 runs scored. Carlos Lee hit his 34th double of the year and drove in 2 runs. Blalock also contributed 2 hits including a double, and Nelson Cruz hit a 2-out, 3-run homerun in the 7th inning.

This was the Rangers 3rd staight win and the Ranger pitching staff has held opponents to 3 runs or less in 8 of their last 9 games.

[Molina00]

It was not such a good game last night as the Mariners defeated the Rangers 9-7 backed by an 18-hit attack. Edinson Volquez starting for Texas continued to struggle allowing 5 runs on 8 hits over 4 innings but got a no decision. The Rangers lead 7-5 going into the 9th inning but Aki Otsuka couldn't hold off the Seattle offense. He allowes 2 runs on 3 hits in the 9th, although both runs were unearned, and took his 4th blown save of the season. C.J. Wilson ended up taking the loss allowing 2 more Seattle runs in the top of the 10th and J.J. Putz shutdown the Rangers in the bottom of the inning to notch the save.

Offensive highlights for Texas were Gary Matthews Jr. going 3 for 5 with his 19th homerun, Mark Teixeira hitting homerun number 28th on the season, Hank Blalock hit his 1st homerun since August 21st and drove in 3, and Ian Kinsler also hit a homerun to give him 13 for the year.

[Molina00]

I know the game 3 recap is a little later than usual, but yesterday was not a good day for me.

Anyway, on with the recap of Wednesday's game.

It unfortunately turned out to be not near as close as the previous game, which the Rangers should have won. The Mariners jumped out to an early lead and never trailed once in the game. Seattle lead 5-0 going into the bottom of the 5th before the Rangers finally broke through against Baek, thanks to a Nelson Cruz 2-run homerun. That would be almost all the Rangers would get as they did not score again until the 9th when they got 1 run. Seattle went on to win the game 6-3 backed by a very solid outting from the rookie Baek. Robinson Tejeda gave up 5 runs but only 2 of them were earned due to a pair of Ian Kinsler errors.