The Texas Rangers were in action yesterday as they were looking to gain ground on the division leading Oakland Athletics in the AL West as they continued their mid-week series.  Texas sent ace Yu Darvish to the mound as he was going for his eighth win of the season, but that would not happen.

He would have a rough outing as he allowed seven runs (four earned) in five-plus innings and is now 1-8 in 10 career starts against the A's after a 10-6 loss at the Coliseum.  He is 0-3 with a 7.59 ERA in four starts at Oakland.  "For some reason, I don't have good numbers against them," Darvish said. "But I have to prepare for my next start. I'm not facing just the A's."  Darvish, who threw his first Major League shutout in his previous start, managed to get through the first inning without giving up a run but was scored upon in each of the next five frames.  Darvish ended up surrendering eight hits and walked a season-high five batters.  He threw 99 pitches before leaving in his shortest outing since a 4-0 loss to the Athletics on April 28, when he lasted just 3 1/3 innings.

"Tonight he wasn't commanding his fastball," Rangers manager Ron Washington said of Darvish's performance.  "If he had been able to it would have been a different story.  But he couldn't command his fastball, and after that there wasn't anything there he could find to get into the zone.  It just wasn't his night.

Texas will wrap up their three game series with Oakland tonight as they go for the series win.  They took game one of the series by a final score of 14-8.  First pitch for that game is set for 2:35pm from Oakland and can be seen on FOX Sports SW.

 

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