(AP) BALTIMORE – Moments before he made history with his final swing in an incredible four-homer performance, Josh Hamilton stepped to the plate in the eighth inning with a surprising sense of calm.

The Texas Rangers slugger had never before hit more than two home runs in a game, and he already had three. So as he took his place in the batter’s box against Baltimore right-hander Darren O’Day, Hamilton already had a feeling of accomplishment.

“I just went up like it was any other at-bat because if I don’t hit one,” Hamilton reasoned, “I’ve still had a really good night.”

It turned out to be unforgettable.

Hamilton became the 16th player to hit four home runs in a game, launching a quartet of two-run drives against three different pitchers to carry the Rangers to a 10-3 victory Tuesday.

Hamilton homered off Jake Arrieta in the first and third innings, added another off Zach Phillips in the seventh and topped it off with a one-for-the-books shot against O’Day. During the last at-bat, Hamilton took a mighty hack and missed, lined a foul into right-field seats and then sent an 0-2 pitch over the center-field wall.

“Obviously it’s, other than being in the World Series, the highlight of my big-league career,” Hamilton said. “I was saying after I hit two I’ve never hit three in a game before, and what a blessing that was. Then to hit four is just an awesome feeling, to see how excited my teammates got.

“It reminds you of when you’re in Little League and a little kid, and just the excitement and why we play the game. Things like that. You never know what can happen. It was just an absolute blessing.”

Hamilton also doubled in the fifth inning. His 18 total bases is a new single-game American League record, and his eight RBIs are a career high.

“Amazing,” Rangers manager Ron Washington said. “Josh came out tonight, and he wasn’t going to be denied.”

The last player to hit four home runs in a game was Carlos Delgado on Sept. 25, 2003, for Toronto against Tampa Bay. Two of the 16 players to hit four homers in a game did it before 1900.

“History was witnessed tonight,” Washington said.

“It’s like anything else — you do something good or something incredible happens, it takes a little bit for it to sink in,” Hamilton said. “I think when I get away from everybody and I have some time to myself, I think it might then.”

Hamilton is the sixth AL player to perform the feat. The last to hit four homers in a game against the Orioles was Rocky Colavito in 1959, at old Memorial Stadium.

“He’s the best athlete in baseball,” teammate Nelson Cruz said of Hamilton. “If anybody can do it, he can do it.”

Elvis Andrus got on base ahead of Hamilton in each instance, said, “He kept hitting bombs and bombs. It feels really good because I don’t have to run that hard to score.”

Hamilton, who is in the final year of his contract and could become a free agent after this season, leads the AL with 14 homers and 36 RBIs, and his 5-for-5 effort raised his batting average to .406.

He also set the Texas single-game club record with five extra-base hits, breaking the mark of four held by eight players. Hamilton has homered in five of his last six at-bats, counting his final trip to the plate Monday night.

Hamilton’s record-setting night is the latest accomplishment in a career that almost never was.

He went from first round draft pick in 1999 by Tampa Bay to out of baseball all together because of drug and alcohol addiction.

He recovered and returned to the majors in 2007 with Cincinnati, and was traded to the Texas, where he has become a star — the AL MVP in 2010 — while still battling his addiction. He had a relapse before this season, but is off to a torrid start.

“Understanding that what I’m doing and what God’s allowed me to do coming back from everything I went through and allowing me to play the game at the level I play it, it’s pretty amazing to think about,” Hamilton said.

Adrian Beltre also homered for the Rangers. Coming off a 14-3 win in the series opener, Texas has won two straight for the first time since April 24-25 and are 20-10, their best-ever record after 30 games.

Dating back to last season, Texas has won seven in a row over Baltimore by a combined 70-18 score.

Rangers starter Neftali Feliz (2-1) gave up one run on four hits and had a career-high eight strikeouts. Converted to starter after notching 72 saves over the previous two seasons, Feliz had a 2-0 lead to protect before throwing his first pitch and maintained the advantage — just like when he was closer.

The Orioles entered the series with the best record in the majors after a 5-1 trip through Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park, but they have looked more like a team with 14 straight losing seasons in these two games against the two-time defending AL champions.

Arrieta (2-3) allowed six runs and nine hits in 6 1-3 innings. He yielded a career-high three homers, matching the total he surrendered in his first six starts this season.

His most notable flaw was his inability to keep Hamilton from hitting the ball out of the park.

“It was the first time I’ve ever seen anything like that. Very special hitter,” Arrieta said on Hamilton. “He didn’t miss tonight.”

J.J. Hardy and Nick Markakis hit consecutive solo homers for Baltimore in the eighth, long after the outcome had been decided.

The Rangers jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning when Andrus drew a one-out walk and Hamilton hit Arrieta’s next pitch over the center-field wall.

It was more of the same in the third, and then some. After Andrus reached on a chopper off the plate, Hamilton lined an opposite-field drive into the left-field seats. Beltre followed with this sixth home run, the fourth time in 30 games that Texas has homered in successive at-bats.

Andrus singled in the seventh before Hamilton sent a drive over the center-field wall against Phillips, who was recalled from Triple-A Norfolk before the game.

After that, the only suspense was whether Hamilton would get another at-bat. He did, and made it count.

NOTES: Andrus has reached base in 26 straight games. He is 16 for 33 on the road trip. … Despite Baltimore’s surprising start, the game drew a meager crowd of 11,263. … Baltimore’s Chris Davis singled in the eighth to snap an 0-for-14 skid.

There’s no need for Texas Rangers center fielder Josh Hamilton and his agent to have verbal negotiations with the club for a new contract. His bat is doing all the talking in the early goings of this 2012 season.

Hamilton has been on a tear the first two weeks of the season and almost single-handedly won the April 22 matchup against the second best team in the American League, the Detroit Tigers. He accounted for three of the Rangers’ nine hits and two of their three runs, one coming by way of a home run in the first inning.

Although the Rangers have played a little less than 10 percent of their schedule, his overall numbers thus far have MVP written all over them. In the five most-looked-at batting categories — runs, hits, home runs, RBIs and batting average — Hamilton ranks in the top two in the AL, including the most home runs (7) and hits (28). He is second in runs (15), RBIs (17) and batting average (.418).

No other AL player is ranked first or second in all five categories.

The only major league player to have a similar, if not better, performance is Los Angeles Dodgers center fielder Matt Kemp, who ranks first in four of the five statistics.

For comparison’s sake, here are Hamilton’s stats after the first 16 games of his 2010 MVP season: runs, 9; hits, 13; homers, 1; RBIs, 7; batting average, .232. He obviously got off to a slow start and heated up throughout the season. But just imagine what his stats could be if he is able to keep up this pace for the entire 2012 season.

As the baseball world has watched Hamilton scorch opposing pitchers, certainly Jon Daniels has to be seeing the cost of keeping his superstar slugger and MVP going out of the park just as quickly as one of his homers. At some point he has to realize that when this 2012 season ends, he might not be able to afford Hamilton’s price, which at this point is likely to be in the Albert Pujols or Prince Fielder range.

One thing is for certain. Hamilton has proven his worth in this small sampling of a season. While business is business, I don’t see how the Rangers can let him walk after the final game of the season — hopefully one that brings home the club’s first World Series championship — knowing that there is no one currently on the roster who can replace him, and there’s certainly not an equal free agent prospect in 2013.

I’m not one to suggest selling the farm, but it might be time to think about getting a second mortgage.

John Ingle is a graduate of the Midwestern State University Mass Communication program with an emphasis in journalism. He’s been a Texas Rangers fan when he met Bump Wills and Buddy Bell when he was in elementary school in Arlington, Texas. Follow him on Twitter @inglejohn1973.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) Joe Nathan signed his contract with the Texas Rangers way back in November. He reported to spring training with them in February and started the regular season as the closer for the two-time defending American League champions.

The transition from Twins leader to Rangers newcomer wasn’t complete until he arrived in the Twin Cities on Thursday night and checked into a hotel room instead of driving to his home in the Minneapolis suburbs.

”This is when it really hits you,” Nathan said from his locker in the visiting clubhouse at Target Field. ”This was such a huge part of my life, this place. It kind of becomes a reality that it’s over here.”

Nathan became a star here. He set records here. He started a family here. He loved it here, and even though he has moved on to a much better team with much higher expectations that gives the 37-year-old a more realistic shot at winning his first World Series, it’s clear he still misses Minnesota.

”When we landed, I definitely had the feeling that I missed this place,” he said. ”I miss being here, miss the guys, miss the fans. But I’m excited about being with this club, excited about being with the Rangers. I look forward to being here for the next three days. I look forward to being around these fans.”

After throwing five times in six days, including a warmup, before the day off on Thursday, Nathan was given one more day of rest in the Rangers’ 4-1 win over the Twins on Friday night.

Nathan was an unheralded reliever with the San Francisco Giants when he was thrown into the trade package that was sent to Minnesota for catcher A.J. Pierzynski in 2003. The deal also netted the Twins Francisco Liriano and Boof Bonser, two starters who projected as much better prospects than that lanky Nathan.

The former college shortstop who didn’t start pitching until he was in the minor leagues turned out to be the real gem in that lopsided transaction. The Twins converted Nathan into a closer, and it didn’t take long for him to turn into one of the most dominant stoppers in the game. He saved 44 games in his first season in Minnesota, made four All-Star teams and set the franchise record with 260 saves in his seven seasons.

He emerged as a pillar in the clubhouse, and his fidgety demeanor and trademark lip-flapping exhale of a deep breath before big pitches on the mound became synonymous with the team’s scrappy success through the last decade.

”He did it for us a long time, took the ball and gave us everything he had,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. ”Great clubhouse guy, great presence in the community. Everything we like to see out of a baseball player, handled himself very well. Plus, he was pretty good when he got the ball in the ninth, too.”

Nathan saved a career-high 47 games in 2009. But his career took a turn the following spring when he tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow and missed the 2010 season while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He returned in 2011, but struggled in the early going and needed to be sent down for another rehab stint before reasserting himself as the team’s closer in the final three months of the season.

He went 11 for 12 in save situations after returning from his rehab assignment, restoring the faith of executives across the league that the 36-year-old still had something left in the tank.

That’s what the Rangers were banking on when they signed him to a two-year, $14.5 million contract in the offseason. They planned to convert Neftali Feliz into a starter and needed a veteran presence on the back end of the bullpen to solidify a group that has won the AL pennant the last two seasons before flaming out in the World Series.

It’s been a bit of a shaky start for Nathan in Texas. He has two saves, but is 0-2 with a 9.00 ERA in four appearances. He gave up three runs in the ninth inning against Seattle on Wednesday and Michael Adams closed out their victory on Thursday. But Rangers manager Ron Washington said he is not concerned with the early struggles.

”We knew he wasn’t going to be perfect,” Washington said with a shrug.

No matter how long he stays with the Rangers, Nathan will always be keeping an eye on the Twins. Before the Twins moved out of the Metrodome, Nathan took some dirt from the mound and put it in a baggie as a keepsake. He did the same thing when Target Field opened. The dirt still has a special place at his home.

”I’m going to keep that,” Nathan said. ”That’s mine. It’s going to be mine forever.”

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Follow Jon Krawczynski on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/APkrawczynski.

Colby Lewis is the Texas Rangers’ opening day pitcher, an honor bestowed on the aces of most teams’ rotations. Of course, there are teams like the Philadelphia Phillies that have multiple aces and teams like the Los Angeles Angels that like to pretend they do, but the Rangers are a different breed.

Honestly, Texas has no ace pitcher on their staff. Lewis, the man given the opening day start, has been solid in postseason but his 2011 regular season was horrendous. He almost didn’t deserve to be in the postseason starting five in 2011. Now, heading into the 2012 season, there is Lewis and newcomer Yu Darvish, who some fans would love to see develop into an ace.

If Darvish becomes an ace for Texas, I think he is one of two players on the roster with that potential. In my eyes, Derek Holland is the best pitcher in the Rangers’ rotation and the man that should be starting on opening day for Texas.

He proved again on Saturday in Las Vegas why he is so great. Holland finished his outing against the Chicago Cubs with two strikeouts and only one hit in four innings pitched. This spring, he is 2-0 with a 2.00 ERA. In nine innings, he has given up seven hits, two runs and struck out seven batters.

After the game on Saturday, he mentioned that, in his earlier starts, he was playing with his pitches, working things out. However, in the Saturday start, he pitched like he would in the regular season and shut down the Cubs.

Holland proved to the world how great he was in 2011 when he came into Game 4 of the World Series and pitched the only gem of any starter on the Rangers’ team. He pitched 8 1/3 innings, gave up two hits and two walks, but allowed no runs in the game. It was an amazing performance by the 25-year old pitcher.

Holland threw four complete game shutouts in the regular season in 2011.

The Texas Rangers have their ace of the future on the staff and his name is Derek Holland. It is just about time they realized this.

Author Shawn S. Lealos has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma (2000) and has been a Texas Rangers fan his entire life, watching the Rangers’ Triple-A affiliate play for over 30 years. While Texas has moved their Triple-A team, Shawn still remains a loyal Rangers fan and awaits the year they finally win the big one.

Source: MLB.COM