Game 50: 1st place in the AL West

Okay, so I've been away for the last few weeks on business. The Rangers have kept at it and done a mighty fine job. They are currently one of the hottest teams - they've won their last nine in a row.

A quick glance at the standings shows that the Rangers are 30-20. Wow. The Angels are at their heels (they've played two more games: one of them is a rain-out that the Rangers will have to make up in August against the White Sox). The Angels don't currently have Vlad or K-Rod - but they'll be back before the end of the road trip. The Mariners aren't the worst team in the AL West (shock!). And, the Athletics are still in a odd funk, but who knows, they may get wicked hot soon.

Rogers won his seventh consecutive start now - he's sitting on a 7-2 record. Yow! Of course, Cordero leads the league in saves. Young has been pitching rather well since his shaky start to the season (since mid-April, he's gone at least five innings and allowed at most two runs!). Park is doing acceptably; his control seems to elude him at times. Drese seems to have been really shaky - to the point where he and Barajas (who has no business catching for Texas) had a 'scuffle' of sorts.

On the offensive side, Teixeira is doing real well - he was a HR short of the cycle tonight. He ranks 4th in the AL in HRs and 8th in RBIs. Excellent. Dellucci is doing an excellent job getting on base (but had the day off today) - can you believe he leads the league in on-base percentage. Soriano is adjusting to life as a #5 hitter - which should allow him many more chances to drive in runners. With Dellucci getting on base a ridiculous amount of time, dropping Soriano makes sense.

I'll try to do a recap of the last 21 games (yah!) this week as I slowly address the pile of things that got placed on my desk.

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