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Rangers target series win over Giants

Jun 9, 2012 - 3:25 PM (Sports Network) - In the midst of a 10-game road trip, the Texas Rangers are gunning for back-to-back wins for the first time in nearly two weeks as they contend against the San Francisco Giants in the second of a three-game interleague set at AT&T Park.

Texas, which bowed out to the Giants in five games during the 2010 World Series, is still sitting in first place in the American League West even though the club has won just twice in the last five outings.

On Friday the Rangers registered their fourth shutout of the campaign as they blanked the Giants in a 5-0 final. Starting pitcher Matt Harrison went the distance for the visitors as he held the Giants to just five hits and struck out four for his third career shutout.

"I think this is probably the best one, other than the first one," Harrison said about his shutout. "I knew what I wanted to do with the ball."

Harrison got plenty of support on offense from Craig Gentry, who had a career- high five hits and two RBI in the triumph. Ian Kinsler and Josh Hamilton each homered for the Rangers, who snapped a 13-game road losing streak against the Giants in the process.

Barry Zito was touched for four runs on nine hits and a pair of walks, making it through just six innings before giving way to the San Francisco bullpen.

Angel Pagan came up empty in four plate appearances, snapping his 28-game home hit streak, which was the longest such streak in Giants franchise history (since 1900).

Searching for his first win of the 2012 campaign is Texas hurler Scott Feldman, who is currently 0-4 with a massive 7.01 ERA. The right-hander, already 0-2 with a 7.04 ERA in three career appearances against the Giants, has nearly as many walks (13) as strikeouts (14) over the course of 25 2/3 innings this year.

A reliever who has been inserted into the starting rotation, Feldman was rocked in his most recent outing on Monday as he surrendered eight earned runs on seven hits in a 12-1 loss to Oakland, making it through a mere 1 2/3 innings of action.

As for San Francisco, they plan on handing the ball to Ryan Vogelsong. The North Carolina native has been a good luck charm for the Giants for the last six weeks or so with the team winning all but one of his last eight appearances.

Earlier this week Vogelsong worked his way through seven innings, permitting just two runs on eight hits, while striking out three, in a 3-2 triumph over the Chicago Cubs.

Vogelsong, who pitched for the Pittsburgh Pirates in parts of five seasons before returning to the Giants, is making his third career appearance against Texas but has yet to record a decision.

Texas, now 138-132 all-time in interleague play, has the top batting average in the majors at .284 and thanks to 80 home runs the squad is also tops in slugging percentage (.463) as well.

Despite having just one home run and a total of three RBI since May 30, Hamilton is still the major league leader in both of those categories to this point in the campaign with 22 and 59, respectively.

At the other end of the power hitting spectrum is San Francisco, which is second-to-last in total home runs with a mere 35 over 59 games. The squad has a slugging percentage of .382 for a rank of 26.