One night after surviving a three-home run outburst by Tigers third baseman Miguel Cabrera the Texas Rangers, owners of the best record in baseball, will start a three-game series with last year's American League West champions, the Oakland Athletics. First pitch will be at 8:05 in Rangers Ballpark in Arlington and the game can be live streamed for free here or at MLB.com with a subscription. Fans of the Rangers can hear the action at 103.3 ESPN, while A's fans can listen in at 95.7 The Game FM.
The Rangers were shellacked for eight runs Sunday night, and will trot out Josh Lindblom (0-0, 0.00 ERA), normally a reliever, for is first career MLB start tonight. He is taking the place of Alexi Ogando, who is on the disabled list with bicep tendinitis.
Lindblom has been an effective reliever in his career, notching a 4-5 record and 3.31 ERA in two seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies. Last season with the Phillies, Lindblom struggled badly with his control, walking 17 batters in 23.1 innings of work.
Tonight, he will combat the hot bat of A's third baseman Josh Donaldson. In the last seven days, Donaldson is mashing at a .429 clip with a home run, two RBI, three runs scored and a 1.149 on base plus slugging percentage. In addition, A's center fielder Yoenis Cespedes began to break out of the slump that has his batting average at .208. In the final two games against Kansas City, Cespedes picked up three hits and a home run. In his only career at-bat against Lindblom, he swatted a home run.
The A's starter tonight, Bartolo Colon (3-2, 4.56 ERA) will have an equally tough task containing Rangers' third baseman Adrian Beltre, who is batting .455 over the last week with a homer, five RBI, six runs scored and a 1.155 OPS.
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