Texas Rangers

Dear Dallas-Fort Worth Sports Fans,

Hey it's us, your first place Texas Rangers.  Yes, that's right, go check, we are in first place in the AL West. 

We have the fifth best record in the majors at 41-28.  We have won nine of our last ten games and our best player, Josh Hamilton, has found the swing that made him famous two years ago at the HR derby.

He's batting .337 with 16 HR and 52 RBI.  All three of those stats are at least in the top four of each category in the AL.

Team Power Rankings:
NOTE: Team W-L records and player statistics accurate as of Sunday June 20, at 11:00 AM CT.
TEAM OF THE WEEK: Team with the largest jump in the rankings.
BUST OF THE WEEK: Team with the furthest drop in the rankings.

1. New York Yankees (42-26) Last Week: 1st
Offense Rank: 2nd
Pitching Rank: 9th
Last Ten Games: 6-4

2. Tampa Bay Rays (42-26) Last Week: 2nd
Offense Rank: 3rd
Pitching Rank: 5th
Last Ten Games: 4-6

Riding a seven-game winning streak on the road, the Texas Rangers have improved their record to 40-28, which is good for fourth best in all of baseball.

With the news that the Texas Rangers placed RHP Rich Harden on the 15-day DL with a stained glut, we might have an Oliver Perez Part Deux on our hands.

In case you aren’t following the Oliver Perez reference, I will explain.

The New York Mets were desperate to get Perez off their active roster, so they put him on the 15-day DL with right patella tendinitis. The reality is, they put him on the DL for sucking, which is a no-no by Major League Baseball standards.

Can you believe the Big 12 Conference is going to break up? I never thought I would ever see that. I mean how can Nebraska be in the Big 10 and Oklahoma and Texas be in the Pac 10?

It just doesn’t seem right.

Hey Stephen Strasburg, it's all been done before.

On June 27, 1973, 18-year-old David Clyde made his major league debut for the Texas Rangers at Arlington Stadium before the largest crowd in Rangers' history.

The top selection in the June 1973 baseball draft, Clyde, who had pitched nine no-hitters for Westchester High School in Houston, signed for a $125,000 bonus. It was the most money given to any drafted player in return for signing.

The Texas Rangers are clearly dedicated to building from within after they traded away their franchise first baseman, Mark Teixeira, for Jarrod Saltalamacchia and four other big-league prospects.

When this season started, I had high hopes for the Rangers pitching staff, and for the most part they have delivered.

There have been quite a few ups and downs, but in general I am quite happy with their performance thus far.

I expected Rich Harden to have a decent season and was somewhat skeptical of moving C.J. Wilson to the starting rotation. 

Boy, was I wrong.

C.J. Wilson has been a great success as a starter. Despite a rough stretch of four or five games, he has pitched extremely well. 

Coming off a tough 4-3 loss to the Chicago White Sox that finished up a eight-game road trip, the Texas Rangers will come home this weekend to face the best team in all of baseball, the Tampa Bay Rays.

Can the Rangers steal a series at home against the Rays and prove to the rest of the AL West that they should be taken seriously?

Afternoon baseball is always a treat.

One part that makes day games unique is the alternate threads.

Teams break out their color-ridden uniforms instead of the normal white and gray jerseys. Sometimes these threads are a masterpiece. Other times, they are just a disaster.

Let's take a look at the 25 best alternate jerseys in the Majors.

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