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Lackey, Angels cruise past Rangers

Sep 21, 2008 - 11:25 PM ARLINGTON, Texas (Ticker) -- John Lackey and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are ready for the postseason, just ask the Texas Rangers.

Lackey snapped out of his funk with six scoreless innings and Mark Teixeira homered as the Angels completed a three-game sweep of the Rangers with a 7-3 victory on Sunday.

Rookie Sean Rodriguez belted a three-run shot and Vladimir Guerrero added an RBI double for the Angels (96-59), who are closing in home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Anaheim has won eight of nine and leads Tampa Bay (92-62) by 3 1/2 games for the best record in baseball. The Rays lost to Minnesota on Sunday.

Hank Blalock broke up the shutout with a three-run homer in the ninth off Jason Bulger.

The Rangers, who struck out 16 times, were dominated by Lackey. He allowed just two hits with a career-high 12 strikeouts and three walks. The Angels' ace retired 12 of the first 13 hitters he faced and did not allow a hit until Blalock doubled with one out in the fifth.

"That was postseason John Lackey today," Rangers outfielder Marlon Byrd said. "He was in and out, stayed down and was never really up in the zone."

Anaheim hopes this is the start of another dominating run for Lackey, who had been 0-2 with a 6.75 in his last three starts. Prior to that, the righthander had won 10 of 11 decisions.

"Today was really good to see from John," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. "His stuff has been fine in his last few starts, but today he was able to blend good command with location. He hit his spots easily with good life on the ball."

"I was able to command multiple pitches today, which kept them from looking for just one pitch," Lackey said. "You don't really keep up with strikeouts in a game while you're out there. You just know things are going well and you try to keep it moving."

Things went well for Lackey, and the Angels' offense.

Teixeira belted a two-run shot in the first - his 32nd of the season - and Garret Anderson drove in a run with a single in the fifth. Rodriguez hit his third career home run off Scott Feldman (5-8) in the sixth, and Guerrero's double in the seventh made it 7-0.

Lackey, who threw 110 pitches, was relieved by Jose Arredondo in the seventh. Arredondo threw two scoreless innings and Bulger finished it off.

Meanwhile, Feldman allowed six runs and eight hits in six innings.