Toronto Blue Jays (11-13) at Texas Rangers (15-9) Finale Preview

Sorry for missing the preview yesterday for the game – maybe it was good luck since they won thanks to Mitch Moreland‘s homerun in the seventh inning. This win gave them their 15th victory of the season and their 11th at home.

Today’s game is in the afternoon rather than at night as the previous three have been. The Rangers look to tie the series this afternoon as they enter the last game of this four-game series. Coming off a win from last night, hopefully they will have enough confidence and momentum to stick it to the Toronto Blue Jays, and with an excellent starter on the mound, they may just be able to it.

Pitching Matchups

The Rangers put Alexi Ogando on the mound Thursday afternoon. Right-handed Ogando has been excellent this season since taking over the fifth rotation spot because of Tommy Hunter‘s groin injury that landed him on the DL and caused him to miss the start of the season. Ogando is 3-0 for the season with a pretty impressive 2.13 ERA. Over 25.1 innings, he has thrown 14 strikeouts and walked five batters. He has allowed four homers and six runs on 15 hits. His last outing was against Kansas City at home in which he threw six innings allowing just a single earned run on five hits and got the decision. He struckout a season high five batters and walked just one hitter.

The Blue Jays will counter will Brandon Morrow. The right-hander is 0-1 with a not-so-great 5.06 earned run average. He has 10 strikeouts for the season and just two walks. This was over 5.1 innings in his season debut last Saturday against the Tampa Bay Rays. But looking at the fact that this was his first start after recovering from a strain to his forearm, you can clearly see that he is indeed healthy despite giving up three runs on three hits.

Pitchers vs. Hitters

RHP Alexi Ogando: The Blue Jays only have two hitters that have went up against Ogando. Corey Patterson is 1-for-1 with a single RBI and Juan Rivera is 0-for-2.

RHP Brandon Morrow: Andres Blanco and Adrian Beltre have had two and four at-bats respectively but haven’t been able to get in a hit off Morrow. Chris Davis is 2-for-3, Elvis Andrus is 2-for-4, Michael Young is 4-for-10 and Julio Borbon is 2-for-5. Ian Kinsler is 4-for-13, Nelson Cruz is 1-for-10 and Mike Napoli is 1-for-8. Homers have come from Young, Davis and Bordon. Michael and Julio both have three RBIs while Davis has two.