By JP Starkey

– Associate Editor

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Sep 16, 2011 – The Texas Rangers quest for a second consecutive AL West crown heads to Seattle on Friday night, as the Rangers open up a three game series against the lowly Mariners. 

Headed into Friday’s games, the Rangers hold a three and a half game lead over the second-place Los Angeles Angels. The Angels, like the Rangers, are opening up a series against a weak opponent this weekend as the Orioles play host to the Angels. 

C.J. Wilson starts for Texas on Friday night, looking to add to his already career-high win total of 16. Wilson has been phenomenal as of late, allowing just two runs in his last three starts – and no runs in his last two starts. During that three-game span, Wilson has pitched 23 innings, allowing two runs on 12 hits while issuing just five walks and striking out 25. 

Wilson’s numbers on the year are fantastic as well. Wilson has eclipsed his career high in WAR, as he’s posted a 5.3 WAR through his first 31 starts. Wilson’s ERA sits comfortably at 3.01, with an xFIP of 3.31. Wilson is also likely to eclipse 200 strikeouts this year as well, as he’s struck out 190 in 209 innings so far on the season.

Texas’ offense will face off against former Ranger farmhand Blake Beaven. Beaven, who is a Texas native, has gone 4-5 in 12 starts for the Mariners, with a 4.32 ERA, .288 BAA and 1.31 WHIP. Beaven, though, does not miss bats, as he’s struck out just 31 in 77 innings. 

First pitch in Seattle is scheduled for 9:10 p.m. CDT, 7:10 p.m. locally at Safeco Field.

Read More: C.J. Wilson (P – TEX), Texas Rangers, Los Angeles Angels, Seattle Mariners

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BY TIM BOOTH

The Associated Press

SEATTLE — Colby Lewis missed pitching a four-hitter by an out and the Texas Rangers got a trio of sacrifice flies plus an RBI single from Michael Young in winning its ninth straight, 4-0 over the Seattle Mariners on Friday night.

Lewis followed up Derek Holland’s stellar performance a night earlier when Holland took a perfect game into the sixth inning before settling for a shutout. Lewis wasn’t quite as good, giving up a third-inning single to Brendan Ryan, but was equally effective at keeping Seattle’s hapless offense off the scoreboard.

Only three times did Seattle advance a runner to second base against the Rangers’ righty. Lewis (9-7) lived on the outside half of the plate and induced weak grounders and pop ups all night.

Seattle starter Doug Fister (3-11) retired 15 straight at one point, but again got no help from his offense. Seattle’s gone scoreless in 26 straight innings.

Lewis won his fourth straight decision and has dropped his ERA from 4.97 on June 11 down to 4.06. He allowed Ryan’s single in the third and a leadoff ground-rule double by Franklin Gutierrez in the fifth when centerfielder Endy Chavez was caught shading Gutierrez too much to right-center field. But Gutierrez was left standing at second as Kyle Seager and Carlos Peguero both struck out — Seager on a 10-pitch at-bat — and Ichiro Suzuki grounded out weakly to shortstop.

That was it for Seattle scoring chances until the ninth when Lewis fell one out short of his second shutout of the season. He gave up a one-out single to Dustin Ackley and then a two-out hit to Adam Kennedy. Manager Ron Washington decided not to risk anything and turned to Neftali Feliz, who got Jack Cust on a groundout to finish off the shutout for his 19th save in 27 chances.

Lewis struck out eight and walked only two in 82/3 innings. The Rangers pitching staff ran its consecutive scoreless innings streak to 29, not allowing a run since Coco Crisp homered in the seventh inning against the Rangers last Saturday. Texas now has 12 shutouts this season, second-best in baseball and the top mark in the American League.

Texas’ offense wasn’t overly powerful against Fister, but did enough. Ian Kinsler doubled to lead off the game and scored on Josh Hamilton’s sacrifice fly. Endy Chavez drove home Nelson Cruz in the second with a sacrifice fly before Texas did enough in the eighth to finally knock out Fister.

That came after Fister settled into an unhittable groove, retiring 15 straight following Elvis Andrus’ leadoff walk in the third. Ten of the 15 outs came on weak grounders in the infield.

But another Fister start was wasted by the Mariners offense. He’s given up four earned runs or less in each of his 12 starts since May 7, only to see the Mariners bats fail to give Fister a chance to win. He entered Friday night getting just 2.15 runs of support per start, the lowest number in the American League.

Seattle manager Eric Wedge was brutally honest about the Mariners offensive woes and that was before Friday’s effort. Before the game, Wedge noted the amount of positives going on with his club but that “hitting isn’t one of them.”

The trend continued against Lewis. Seattle hasn’t scored since the first inning of last Sunday’s loss to the Angels, its final game before the All-Star break.

NOTES: Seattle announced before Friday’s game that RHP David Aardsma will need Tommy John surgery on his right elbow. An MRI on Aardsma done Thursday determined the need for surgery.

He did not pitch for the Mariners this season. … Rangers INF Andres Blanco, on the DL since July 8 with a strained lower back, will start swinging a bat on Saturday and if there are no setbacks could head out on a rehab assignment sometime next week. … Friday was the 12th anniversary of the opening of Safeco Field.

——(equals)

Follow Tim Booth on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/tjbooth7

The Texas Rangers received another day to savor their stature as the only unbeaten team in the majors after Friday night’s game against the Baltimore Orioles was postponed by rain.

The teams will play a traditional doubleheader on Saturday starting at 4:30 p.m.

Texas had a scheduled day off on Thursday, and the rainout enabled them to remain undefeated heading into the weekend.

“I wish I could get excited about that,” manager Ron Washington said. “I’d much rather play, but since we can’t, we’ll go two tomorrow.”

The players didn’t seem to mind. Minutes after the postponement became official, Ian Kinsler and six other Rangers slid on the tarp.

Texas came to town after going 6-0 on a homestand against Boston and Seattle. If the Rangers can win the opener Saturday, they will match the best start in franchise history (7-0 in 1996).

A steady rainshower hit the area early in the day and never really let up. The scheduled 7:05 p.m. start was delayed for about an hour before the game was finally postponed.

“Everybody did everything possible to try to play,” Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. “It just started moving a lot slower and settling in. You’re going to have periods of 10 minutes when it’s not raining very hard and then it comes back again. Plus, you don’t want the fans to sit in that stuff, either.”

Shortly before the game, Baltimore second baseman Brian Roberts experienced persistent stomach pain and was taken to the hospital for tests. The Orioles hoped it was just a virus that’s been going around.

Baltimore is 5-1. Hours before the scheduled start, Showalter expressed hope that the game would be played Friday because he feared what a doubleheader would do to his pitching staff.

“You always have to think about down the road, the next day and the next day,” he said. “If we play 18 innings (Saturday), that’s a lot of baseball to pitch. And one of the things about being home, you know you’re going to pitch nine innings.”

The day off will give shortstop J.J. Hardy some time to bounce back from a sore left rib cage. Hardy was a late scratch Thursday against Detroit and omitted from the starting lineup on Friday.

“I’ve never had anything like it,” Hardy said. “But being able to throw, being able to run around not feel pain, I feel like it can’t be that big a deal. So, I’m hoping to be in this series at some point.”

Showalter will start rookie left-hander Zach Britton in the opener and Jake Arrieta in the second game. Britton was scheduled to start on Friday night.

Colby Lewis will start the opener and Matt Harrison will pitch in the nightcap.

Arlington, Texas –The Texas Rangers begin their 40^th year in Arlington and defense of their 2010 American League Championship on Friday against the Boston Red Sox at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington in a 3:05 p.m. game. The game is a complete sellout.