Los Angeles Angels (10-6) at Texas Rangers (11-5) Preview Game 2

As you can see from last night’s recap, the Angels were unable to take first place of the AL West from the Rangers. The Rangers pounded the Angels last night to gain the lead of their division. Last night’s win allowed for the Rangers to continue their solid run at home. So far, they have played seven games in Arlington and have yet to lose a single one.

Neat fact: the Rangers are the only team to have gone unbeaten this year at home.

While they will look to continue their winning streak at home and raise their record to 8-0 in Arlington, the Rangers will also look to defeat the Angels yet again to solidfy their lead in the division even more when they place Colby Lewis on the mound. Lewis is back from his paternity leave after his wife gave birth to a little girl last Wednesday and was reinstated to the Rangers’ active roster on Monday.

More after the jump…

Pitching Matchups

The Rangers will hand over the ball to RHP Colby Lewis for tonight’s game. Lewis is 1-1 for the season with an earned run average of 5.25. Lewis will find himself pitching for the first time since he allowed five runs, four of which were earned, in six innings resulting in a 5-0 win for the Orioles in Baltimore on April 9. Last season against the Angels, Lewis had two starts and was 0-1 with an ERA of 3.00. In nine starts in his career against LA, he is 3-2 with an earned run average of 4.68.

The Angels will counter with RHP Matt Palmer. Palmer is 0-0 with a 7.71 ERA for the season. Palmer also allowed five runs on 10 hits in his last time out over 4.2 innings against Toronto and were still able to win the game 6-5. Palmer made his way into the starting rotation for the Angels when Scot Kazmier was placed on the DL. Palmer has only one start in his career against the Rangers in which he allowed just a single hit over five innings resulting in a 5-0 victory on September 30, 2009.

Pitchers vs. Hitters

RHP Colby Lewis: Jeff Mathis is 1-for-1 and has the best batting average against Lewis. Bobby Abreu and Torii Hunter are both sitting with .250 batting averages with Hunter recording a homer and a RBI. Vernon Wells is 3-for-13 with one home run and one RBI, Hank Conger 1-for-5 with one RBI and Howard Kendrick is 1-for-7. The rest of the Angels have been unable to hit off Lewis.

RHP Matt Palmer: Julio Borbon is 2-for-4, Adrian Beltre is 3-for-8 with a home run and three RBIs, Elvis Andrus is 1-for-3, David Murphy is 2-for-6 and Ian Kinsler is 1-for-4 with one RBI. The rest of the Rangers haven’t been able to get a hit in on Palmer.

Chime in below with your predictions for tonight’s game. Who has the upper-hand: Lewis or Palmer?