Hydroplane.
The American League West got off to a decent start this season. As the schedule approached mid-June, three of four teams were over .500. But imagine if the standings looked like this in the middle of that month: Tm W L W-L% GB OAK 34 29 .540 -- TEX 31 34 .477 4.0 LAA 25 38 .397 9.0 SEA 24 42 .364 11.5 Pretty ugly. That's what has happened in this division since June 24 (when the Rangers' 11-game win streak came to an end). Among the things I tweeted as yesterday's third inning was falling apart: Right now it's hard to put a finger on how this team was able to do what it did in June. But thank goodness it did it. Texas went 21-6 in June, a historically dominant month for this franchise. The rest of the season: two games under .500. There's rain in the forecast here tomorrow, but not under the roof in Toronto, when the Rangers, after sending Scott Feldman out tonight against Shawn Marcum in a recurrence of the two clubs' Opening Day matchup, will give the ball tomorrow to Derek Holland, who will face "To Be Determined" for the second straight time out. The last one didn't work out so well, when Holland was decent enough but Minnesota emergency starter Matt Fox shut the Rangers down before getting designated for assignment afterwards. Early word is that Jays lefthander Marc Rzepcynski could go on short rest, after lasting just four innings Saturday against the Yankees (five runs on six hits and three walks and a hit batsman, 74 pitches overall). On paper tomorrow's game looks like a better bet than tonight's, as Feldman returns from the disabled list and Marcum comes in on a streak of four straight quality starts (1-1, 1.93) against Oakland, Boston, Detroit, and Tampa Bay. The same Shawn Marcum who took a no-hitter into the seventh inning against Texas on Opening Day, only to see the Rangers bust open for five runs late to walk off with the first improbable win of the season. When we gather tomorrow at Sherlock's/Dallas for our second game-watching party in a week and half, we'll raffle off three separate pairs of Lexus Club Level tickets to the September 27 game against Seattle. The significance of that one is that it's the Rangers' first home game after a 10-day trip to Seattle, Los Angeles, and Oakland – which means either that Texas will have clinched a playoff berth by then (making it the home crowd's first chance to celebrate that in 11 years), or that the game will be huge, with seven regular season games to go. We'll have three winners (two tickets each). Raffle tickets will be $10 apiece at the door, with 100 percent going to the Rangers Foundation. We'll conduct the raffle at the end of the Thad Levine Q&A, which gets going at 5:00 p.m. and will be emceed by ESPN Radio's Ben Rogers and his close, personal homeboy Jeff "Skin" Wade. Details for the party: WHO: Thad Levine, Rangers Assistant GM; Q&A emceed by Ben & Skin WHAT: Q&A session followed by Rangers-Blue Jays on every TV WHERE: Sherlock's Baker St. Pub (9100 N. Central Expressway, northeast corner of 75 and Park Lane) WHEN: Wednesday, September 8, 2010; Q&A begins at 5:00 p.m., game time is 6:00 p.m. COST: Admission is free ($10 raffle tickets available to win tickets to TEX-SEA on Sept. 27) If you're coming tomorrow night and want to lend a hand with a couple things, let me know. =========================================================== To join the free Newberg Report mailing list so you can get e-mail deliveries of every edition of the newsletter, daily minor league game recaps, and frequent Newberg Report News Flashes, go to www.newbergreport.com and click the "Mailing List" link on the top menu bar. (c) Jamey Newberg http://www.newbergreport.com Twitter @newbergreport