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Dodgers-Rangers Preview

Jun 13, 2009 - 6:43 AM By DAN PIERINGER STATS Writer

Los Angeles (40-22) at Texas (35-25), 8:05 p.m. EDT

Playing in one of baseball's most notoriously hitter-friendly ballparks with one of the majors' most consistently bad pitching staffs has led to a string of disappointing seasons for the Texas Rangers.

Their dominant performances on the mound over the last two days, though, are the latest evidence that this could be a different season in Arlington.

After posting consecutive home shutouts for the first time in nearly three decades, the AL West-leading Rangers will try for a third behind Scott Feldman on Saturday night as they continue a three-game interleague series against the major league-best Los Angeles Dodgers.

Texas has suffered eight losing seasons in nine years since its last playoff appearance in 1999, and the Rangers have ranked 24th or worse in the majors in ERA seven times in that stretch.

Though it's still in baseball's bottom 10 with a 4.49 ERA, this year's club could break both trends if it keeps pitching like it has lately. Texas (35-25) beat Toronto 1-0 on Thursday before taking the opener against Los Angeles 6-0 on Friday.

"We swung the bats, played defense and pitched. We did what we had to do," manager Ron Washington said. "We know we can play with anybody. We're very confident."

The last time the Rangers held visitors scoreless on consecutive days was April 1981, when they did it four games in a row at old Arlington Stadium.

This week's shutouts had added significance because they came against two of baseball's highest-scoring offenses.

"(The pitchers) deserve a lot of credit for that. To do it against two pretty good teams is impressive," third baseman Michael Young said. "It's fun to play defense behind those guys."

The Dodgers (40-22) still have the best record in baseball, but Friday's defeat dropped them to 6-13 in interleague play since the start of last season, including 1-3 this year. They've been especially bad in AL parks, going 5-29 since 2005.

Los Angeles stranded a runner at third four times as it was shut out for the third time in the opener.

"It looks like we're still pressing to get hits," manager Joe Torre said.

That bodes well for Feldman (5-1, 4.01 ERA), who had a three-start winning streak snapped with his first loss of the year Monday. The right-hander gave up four runs in six innings of a 6-3 defeat to Toronto.

"He was off," Washington told the Rangers' official Web site. "He wasn't pounding the strike zone like he normally does."

Before that, the Rangers had won seven of eight games started by Feldman since moving him into the rotation in late April. Feldman had a 2.63 ERA in that stretch.

Randy Wolf (3-2, 3.62) will start for the Dodgers hoping to rebound from his two worst outings of 2009. After giving up what was then a season high of five runs last Tuesday, the left-hander got tagged for six runs in 6 1-3 innings of a 7-2 loss to Philadelphia on Sunday.

"I had decent stuff, but I didn't put the ball where I wanted to," Wolf told the Dodgers' official Web site. "You don't get those types of results if you throw the ball where you want to. ... It was just one of those things, so I have to get better."

Now in his 11th season, Wolf has pitched against every major league team except Texas and Kansas City.