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Laird, Broussard power Rangers past Angels

Apr 6, 2008 - 11:37 PM ANAHEIM, California (Ticker) -- Gerald Laird homered twice and drove in six runs to lead the Texas Rangers to a 10-4 victory over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim on Sunday.

Ben Broussard also homered for the Rangers, who got nine RBI out of the bottom third of the order.

Laird finished with four hits in his second career multi-homer game, clubbing a three-run blast in the fourth and capping the scoring with a two-run shot in the ninth.

"It feels good and means a lot to me to have a game like this, especially in front of my family and friends," said Laird, who is from nearby Westminster.

The veteran backstop, who beat out promising youngster Jarrod Saltalamacchia for the starting catcher's job in spring training, scored three runs and bumped his average to .312 for the young campaign.

"I felt like this was going to be the series I would break out offensively," Laird said. "I was seeing the ball and making solid contact in Seattle, so I just had a feeling this was the series."

Texas did most of its damage against Anaheim starter Jon Garland (1-1), who got knocked around for seven runs and eight hits in five innings. The veteran righthander walked two and struck out a pair.

"Just didn't have my best stuff today," Garland said. "I missed location with a lot of my pitches and left the ball up in the zone. It seemed like they made solid contact every at-bat."

Garland, who pitched a gem in his first start of the season on Tuesday, fell to 4-8 with a 5.87 ERA in 18 career games against the Rangers.

"His pitch selection was a lot better in his first start, and today, he just couldn't get into a groove," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said.

Vicente Padilla (1-0) started for Texas and lasted seven innings, allowing four runs - three earned - and nine hits while striking out four.

"Padilla went out and did his job, going seven strong innings and keeping us in the game," Rangers manager Ron Washington said. "Anytime we can come here and win a series is big for us."

Padilla kept the ball on the ground for most of the afternoon, inducing 11 groundouts against five flyouts, and did not issue a walk.

"It seemed like he was ahead of their hitters most of the game today," Laird said of his batterymate. "He was getting most of his pitches over for strikes when he wanted, too. He pitched a great game for us today."

Garret Anderson hit a solo homer to right-center field to put Anaheim on top, 1-0, in the second, but the Rangers took over from there - scoring the next five runs to put away the game.

Ramon Vazquez and Ian Kinsler each drove in runs in the third to give Texas the lead before Laird's three-run blast in the fourth.

"The bottom of our order took advantage of bad pitches in bad spots," Washington said. "We just want those guys at the bottom of the order to be aggressive."

Torii Hunter also homered for Anaheim and Howie Kendrick boosted his average to .444 with two hits.