Published Monday, May 23, 2011 1:42 AM

PHILADELPHIA — Matt Harrison joined the growing list of pitchers throwing like a Cy Young Award winner against the offensively inept Phillies.

Harrison took a five-hitter into the ninth inning and helped the Texas Rangers avoid a three-game sweep with a 2-0 win over Philadelphia on Sunday.

His stat line was hardly dazzling. Harrison (4-4) struck out three, walked three and threw 117 pitches in his longest outing of the season, finishing two outs shy of his first shutout since 2009.

Harrison was winless in his last five starts — a streak easily broken in Philadelphia.

“Everything was working for me and I was throwing strikes,” Harrison said.

Harrison fanned Ryan Howard to open the ninth, but was lifted after he walked Ben Francisco.

Neftali Feliz got two outs for his ninth save. Mitch Moreland had an RBI double off Phillies starter Roy Oswalt and Craig Gentry added a suicide squeeze.

“The plane ride will be a lot better,” Rangers manager Ron Washington said. “I hope this will be a momentum swing for us.”

Both teams are expected to get a lift on Monday: Chase Utley for the Phillies, and Josh Hamilton and Nelson Cruz for the Rangers.

Two teams with loaded offenses have been hit hard by injury and underachievement. The Rangers entered batting .196 in their last five games and they have gone 11 straight games scoring four of less runs. They have one home run in the last seven games.

Texas touched Oswalt (3-2) for eight hits and broke through for a run in the sixth.

“I knew with Oswalt pitching, it would be a close game, so I wanted to give the team a chance to win,” Harrison said. “It’s good to finally have a win. It seems like it’s been two months. This is a real confidence booster for me.”

Michael Young singled to right and advanced to second on a grounder. Moreland drove the ball the opposite way off the left-field wall for a run-scoring double.

He was left there when shortstop Jimmy Rollins made a nice grab in the hole to throw out Harrison and end the inning.

The Rangers made it 2-0 in the eighth when Gentry’s suicide squeeze scored Adrian Beltre, who had doubled.

Oswalt lost for the first time (10-1) at Citizens Bank Park. He was 6-0 in eight starts with the Phillies. He struck out three and walked two.

Oswalt said he couldn’t change his approach when the offense is slumping.

“You’ve just got to hit your spots a little bit better,” Oswalt said. “You’ve got to kind of dance of between raindrops out there. You can’t give up too many hits in one inning.”

Texas blew its chances to bust the game open.

The Rangers squandered runners on the corners in the fifth when Ian Kinsler grounded into a force out. They had two runners on in the seventh when Young hit into a double play.

Help is on the way.

Washington said Hamilton and Cruz should be activated off the disabled list in time for Monday’s home game against the Chicago White Sox.

Both are expected to play Sunday for Triple-A Round Rock in the final game of their minor league rehab assignments.

Hamilton, last year’s American League MVP, is recovering from a broken bone in his upper right arm. Cruz is rehabbing a strained right quadriceps muscle.

The Phillies are in a funk and they’ll need more than Utley’s return to jolt the offense.

The Phillies have not scored more than three runs in a game since May 13. They scored a combined five runs in the first two games of the series, just enough to win with Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee on the mound.

Oswalt wasn’t so lucky.

In the third, Placido Polanco left two runners stranded on a dribbler up the first base line.

The Phillies had eight hits on Saturday, snapping a streak of seven straight games with six or less. The NL East leaders had five on Sunday. It was so bad that Howard tried to bunt for a hit in the ninth.

“We’re going to hit, we’re going to hit better,” Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. “We’re going to bottom out one of these days. Hopefully, it was today.”

NOTES: The Phillies dropped to 5-1 against the Rangers at Citizens Bank Park in interleague play. … Utley will be activated off the 15-day disabled list before Monday’s game against Cincinnati. The Phillies are set to put RHP Joe Blanton on the DL and recall righty Vance Worley before Monday’s game. The Phillies optioned INF Pete Orr to Triple-A Lehigh Valley. … Rangers SS Elvis Andrus has stolen 23 straight bases. … Kinsler was hit by pitches twice.

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CBSSports.com wire reports
May 22, 2011

PHILADELPHIA — Matt Harrison joined the growing list of pitchers throwing like a Cy Young Award winner against the offensively inept Phillies.

Harrison took a five-hitter into the ninth inning and helped the Texas Rangers avoid a three-game sweep with a 2-0 win over Philadelphia on Sunday.

His stat line was hardly dazzling. Harrison (4-4) struck out three, walked three and threw 117 pitches in his longest outing of the season, finishing two outs shy of his first shutout since 2009.

Harrison was winless in his last five starts — a streak easily broken in Philadelphia.

“Everything was working for me and I was throwing strikes,” Harrison said.

Harrison fanned Ryan Howard to open the ninth, but was lifted after he walked Ben Francisco.

Neftali Feliz got two outs for his ninth save. Mitch Moreland had an RBI double off Phillies starter Roy Oswalt and Craig Gentry added a suicide squeeze.

“The plane ride will be a lot better,” Rangers manager Ron Washington said. “I hope this will be a momentum swing for us.”

Both teams are expected to get a lift on Monday: Chase Utley for the Phillies, and Josh Hamilton and Nelson Cruz for the Rangers.

Two teams with loaded offenses have been hit hard by injury and underachievement. The Rangers entered batting .196 in their last five games and they have gone 11 straight games scoring four of less runs. They have one home run in the last seven games.

Texas touched Oswalt (3-2) for eight hits and broke through for a run in the sixth.

“I knew with Oswalt pitching, it would be a close game, so I wanted to give the team a chance to win,” Harrison said. “It’s good to finally have a win. It seems like it’s been two months. This is a real confidence booster for me.”

Michael Young singled to right and advanced to second on a grounder. Moreland drove the ball the opposite way off the left-field wall for a run-scoring double.

He was left there when shortstop Jimmy Rollins made a nice grab in the hole to throw out Harrison and end the inning.

The Rangers made it 2-0 in the eighth when Gentry’s suicide squeeze scored Adrian Beltre, who had doubled.

Oswalt lost for the first time (10-1) at Citizens Bank Park. He was 6-0 in eight starts with the Phillies. He struck out three and walked two.

Oswalt said he couldn’t change his approach when the offense is slumping.

“You’ve just got to hit your spots a little bit better,” Oswalt said. “You’ve got to kind of dance of between raindrops out there. You can’t give up too many hits in one inning.”

Texas blew its chances to bust the game open.

The Rangers squandered runners on the corners in the fifth when Ian Kinsler grounded into a force out. They had two runners on in the seventh when Young hit into a double play.

Help is on the way.

Washington said Hamilton and Cruz should be activated off the disabled list in time for Monday’s home game against the White Sox.

Both are expected to play Sunday for Triple-A Round Rock in the final game of their minor league rehab assignments.

Hamilton, last year’s American League MVP, is recovering from a broken bone in his upper right arm. Cruz is rehabbing a strained right quadriceps muscle.

The Phillies are in a funk and they’ll need more than Utley’s return to jolt the offense.

The Phillies have not scored more than three runs in a game since May 13. They scored a combined five runs in the first two games of the series, just enough to win with Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee on the mound.

Oswalt wasn’t so lucky.

In the third, Placido Polanco left two runners stranded on a dribbler up the first base line.

The Phillies had eight hits on Saturday, snapping a streak of seven straight games with six or less. The NL East leaders had five on Sunday. It was so bad that Howard tried to bunt for a hit in the ninth.

“We’re going to hit, we’re going to hit better,” Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. “We’re going to bottom out one of these days. Hopefully, it was today.”

Notes

• The Phillies dropped to 5-1 against the Rangers at Citizens Bank Park in interleague play.
• Utley will be activated off the 15-day disabled list before Monday’s game against Cincinnati. The Phillies are set to put RHP Joe Blanton on the DL and recall righty Vance Worley before Monday’s game. The Phillies optioned INF Pete Orr to Triple-A Lehigh Valley.
• Rangers SS Elvis Andrus has stolen 23 straight bases.
• Kinsler was hit by pitches twice.

(Sports Network) – The identity of the Oakland Athletics has long been
centered around solid pitching, and this year has been no different.

It was some more strong pitching that allowed the A’s to take three out of
four from the Texas Rangers at home this past weekend. There was also some
timely hitting, which hasn’t been so common in Oakland. Hideki Matsui’s walk-
off blast in the 10th inning of Monday’s game gave the A’s a 5-4 victory and,
they hope, some much needed momentum going into another big series. Manager
Bob Geren called it their most exciting game of the year.

“I’ve never seen this group that animated and excited after a win,” Geren
said. “Guys were just jumping high. I hope they didn’t hit their head on the
dugout. That ball came off the bat and it was loud. That was a thrill.”

The team now turns its attention to the red-hot Cleveland Indians (19-8),
owners of the best record in the majors after a month of baseball. But while
the Tribe are off to their best start in more than a decade thanks to 13
straight wins at home, they are just 6-6 on the road as they visit the
Coliseum Tuesday night.

Oakland stands at 15-14, one game back of the division co-leaders. The A’s
have their pitching to thank for getting them to this point, as they closed
out April with a Major League-best 2.47 staff ERA and only eight home runs
allowed. Leading the way has been the starting trio of Brett Anderson, Trevor
Cahill and Gio Gonzalez. Anderson, however, gave up his first three dingers of
the year in Monday’s outing, although the A’s were able to salvage the win
thanks to Matsui’s late-game heroics.

Meanwhile, the offense has been slow to come around, as the team is hitting
just .242 and ranks second-to-last in the AL with only 16 home runs.
Defensively, Oakland’s 27 errors are tied for most in the majors.

However, things could be looking up. Consider, the A’s will play 17 of their
30 games in May at home, following a tough road stretch in the season’s first
month. Closer Andrew Bailey is set to face hitters for the first time on
Wednesday as he looks to take the next step in rehabbing his strained forearm.
Bailey, who has been out since mid-March, would likely face hitters one more
time before beginning a Minor League rehab assignment. If all goes well, he
could potentially return to the team by the middle of May, according to the
team.

Coco Crisp, after missing the previous three games with tightness in his left
quadriceps, returned to the lineup Sunday and went 2-for-5 with an RBI in a
7-2 win over Texas. Geren held him out of Monday’s game as a precautionary
measure.

“Coming back from an injury, we’re just being cautious with him,” Geren said.
“We’ll monitor how the game goes. He was at a pretty high exertion yesterday,
did a lot of running. So we just need to be cautious with him for the long
term, and we felt like today was the day to do that.”

Geren added that he expected Crisp back in the leadoff spot for Tuesday’s
series opener against Cleveland. That’s certainly good news for the A’s, who
need their leadoff man setting the table for a lineup that has lacked some
punch.

FIRST-PLACE RANGERS HAVE SOME HOLES

Entering play Tuesday, the Texas Rangers (16-13) shared the AL West lead with
the Angels. But in order to stay atop the division, the Rangers have some
weaknesses they’ll need to shore up.

Relievers Arthur Rhodes and Darren Oliver combined for a late-game meltdown in
Monday’s 5-4 loss to Oakland. With closer Neftali Feliz still not back from a
shoulder injury, the bullpen has blown 4-of-7 save opportunities. The good
news is Feliz is headed for a rehab assignment in Double-A Frisco on Wednesday
and could soon after return to bolster the back end of the ‘pen.

But Feliz won’t solve all of the team’s problems. After a club-record 9-1
start to the season, Texas has dropped 12 of its last 19 games. The Rangers
have struggled with runners in scoring position, and their .976 fielding
percentage and 26 errors both rank as the second-worst marks in the American
League.

“We’re grinding right now,” Michael Young said after Monday’s setback. “We’re
battling and playing hard, but we’re just not getting the breaks right now.”

The team has dropped five of its last six road games to fall to 5-8 away from
home. The Rangers will continue their current trip with a three-game set in
Seattle beginning Tuesday night.

ANGELS CAN’T RIDE STELLAR PITCHING DUO FOREVER

It had to come to an end sometime. As remarkable as his start to the 2011
season was, Jered Weaver simply had to lose at some point. That reality came
to fruition Monday night when Weaver (6-1) suffered his first loss of the
season in a 9-5 setback to the Boston Red Sox.

The turning point came on a 13-pitch at-bat by Dustin Pedroia in the fifth
inning, which the former league MVP capped with a two-run single up the middle
to put Boston on top. Even with the loss, Weaver still leads the majors in
wins (6) and strikeouts (55), and he ranks third with a 1.39 ERA. Teammate Dan
Haren ranks second with a 1.23 ERA.

Monday’s loss underscores the obvious fact that the Angels are going to need
other guys to step up. Haren and Weaver are only two-thirds of a starting
rotation that has otherwise struggled. Weaver won’t be perfect every time out
— his three runs allowed were a season-high and his six innings pitched were
a season-low.

Haren will look to pick up his teammate when he battles Red Sox ace Jon Lester
Tuesday night. Haren has allowed two or fewer runs in all six of his outings,
although he has lost three straight starts to Boston. Likewise, Weaver is 1-3
with a 7.16 ERA lifetime at Fenway Park. And as a team, the Angels have
dropped 14 of their last 15 meetings with the Red Sox.

With Weaver suffering a stomach virus over the weekend, manager Mike Scioscia
was afforded the opportunity to line up his top two pitchers back-to-back.
While the move has some advantages, as the skipper pointed out, it is
dependent on the other starters carrying their weight.

“The first thing you’re looking for in a rotation is going to be length,”
Scioscia said. “When those guys were split up, it helped us in that aspect.
You had more normal length. With those guys back-to-back, there are obvious
advantages to trying to get on a roll. If you get length from (Ervin) Santana,
(Joel) Pineiro and (Tyler) Chatwood, it’s a moot point. If Ervin and Joel are
going deep in games, it won’t be an issue at all with the bullpen.”

So far, Chatwood (2-1, 4.94) has failed to hold up his end of the bargain. And
although Santana has averaged 6 1/3 innings, he has been mostly ineffective
(1-3, 4.89).

MARINERS ROUNDING INTO FORM

After a horrid start to the season that saw the Seattle Mariners sporting
baseball’s worst record (8-15) as of April 24, the team has really picked
things up of late. Since that point, the M’s have won five of their last six
— on the road against the likes of Detroit and Boston — to move to within
three games of the division leaders.

Although it’s a relatively small sample size, the recent surge has certainly
restored some confidence, not to mention stop Seattle from digging itself a
deep hole in the standings. But now comes the tricky part; building on that
momentum.

“It was a great road trip,” said manager Eric Wedge. “The guys played some
real good baseball. It was a big step in the right direction. I think these
guys are finding out just what they’re capable of doing, and we’re going to
continue to get better.”

The starting pitching, led by ace Felix Hernandez, has been serviceable. And
Brandon League has shored up the back end of the bullpen by converting all
seven of his save opportunities thus far. The X-factor, as has been the case
for quite some time with this team, is the offense.

Seattle ranks second-to-last in the AL with a .231 team batting average, and
even during the recent trip, the Mariners averaged just over three runs per
game which is right on their season average.

Some relief could be on the horizon in the form of Franklin Gutierrez, who
began a rehab assignment Monday night after missing most of spring training
and all of April with irritable bowel syndrome. A healthy Gutierrez in center
field would help out the defense, and his right-handed bat would help restore
balance to a lefty-heavy lineup.

The Sports Network

SURPRISE, Ariz. — Veteran infielder Michael Young visited unfamiliar territory Monday, making his first-ever start at first base during the Texas Rangers’ spring training game against the Kansas City Royals.

“I’ve never played a game at first,” Young said before the game.

Not in Little League, high school or even UC-Santa Barbara. Not in the minors, and definitely not during any of his 11 seasons in the major leagues.

Young handled only one chance in four innings on Monday. Demonstrating why they want him in the lineup, he had a double and a triple.

The newbie first baseman has had a mission in spring: get a first baseman’s glove.

“I’m going to work one in right now,” Young said Monday morning as he dressed for workouts. “I’ve being using C.D.’s [Chris Davis] for a while.”

Young, who used Davis’ glove vs. the Royals on Monday, is still working out his own first baseman’s glove.

He might need a separate locker just for his gloves this season — he’ll have at least three for the different positions he’ll play as a super-utility man. His middle infield glove is smaller than his third baseman’s glove, which is obviously smaller than an oversized first baseman’s glove, which is halfway to a catcher’s mitt.

“It’s definitely different,” Young said. “It’s big.”

Meanwhile, Davis started Monday’s game at third base, where he’s getting plenty of action this spring while Adrian Beltre is out with a calf strain. Davis said he doesn’t really care if he’s at the hot corner or first base.

“Whatever keeps me in the lineup, to be honest,” Davis said.

First base is considered the easier position to field, and plenty of players have made the transition from third base, catcher and the outfield. Plus, Young isn’t moving there full time, just on a sporadic basis assuming Mitch Moreland wins the position outright. Mike Napoli can also play first.

There are plenty of nuances to playing first base that require practice time to get rhythm, timing and instinct down, such as pick-off throws, general positioning, the stretch and the scoop. For at least his first few games at first, Young will get dugout direction from Rangers coach Dave Anderson and manager Ron Washington.

“I just want him to get over there and get comfortable and get relaxed,” Washington said. “I know if a ground ball goes to him, he’s going to catch it. If a ground ball goes in the infield, he’s going to put himself in position to make the play. There’s nothing special that I’m looking for. I just want him to get through the day. If he gets through the day healthy, I’ll be happy.”

Jeff Caplan covers the Rangers for ESPNDallas.com.

Follow Jeff Caplan on Twitter: @espn_caplan