Sep 27, 2012; Arlington, TX, USA; Texas Rangers rookie infielder Jurickson Profar in the dugout during the game against the Oakland Athletics at Rangers Ballpark. Mandatory Credit: Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

The Texas Rangers are coming off of a great series against the Tigers where they won three out of four at home. The game last night was a bit crazy, and it took what seemed like twenty-two hours or so. Either way, when you are able to take three out of four from a team expected to be really good, that is considered a sucessful series.

The Oakland Athletics are coming to town for three games starting tonight, and tonight should be an interesting game. Josh Lindbloom gets the start for Texas. In cas you don’t remember, Lindbloom came over from the Phillies in the Michael Young trade. Lindbloom is 4-0 with a 2.08 ERA so far at Round Rock this season in seven starts and one relief appearance. He is being called up to take Alexi Ogando’s spot in the rotation, and he will be put up against last years proven cheater Bartolo Colon. Colon has not fared as well this season, being 3-2 with a 4.56 ERA. The Rangers also designated Derek Lowe for assignment to make room for Lindbloom. The Rangers should be able to win if Lindbloom can hold his own against a struggling A’s lineup. This will be his first major league start. Another exciting thing about tonights game (for all of us prospect fans) is that Jurickson Profar is getting the start at second, replacing the injured Ian Kinsler. Profar is coming off of a multi-home run game Saturday night at Round Rock. If you didn’t get a chance to see him last season with the Rangers, he is a very exciting player to watch. It should be fun to see him out there.

Tuesday gives us the matchup of Yu Darvish (7-1, 2.97 ERA) against Dan Straily (1-2, 7.27 ERA). This matchup just seems unfair for the Athletics, looking at the pitching matchup, but we all know what that means. It means it will probably be a close matchup that will come down to the wire. Either way, I expect Darvish to earn his eight win of the season in this one. Wednesday has Nick Tepesch (3-4, 3.98 ERA) going against Jarrod Parker (2-5, 6.04 ERA). Again, if Tepesch can keep the Rangers in the game, they should have a great chance of winning this game and sweeping the series.

As earlier mentioned, the Rangers designated Derek Lowe for assignment. Derek had an ERA of 9.00, the worst by far in the Rangers organization this season. Michael Kirkman, whom a lot of Rangers fans wanted dropped today after his appearence yesterday, is still there. I think the Rangers are willing to give him more of a chance because he is younger and the Rangers are hoping he will come around eventually. He has had some good games, and then some really bad games. Kind of reminds me of Derek Holland a couple of years ago. When Kirkman is good, he is really good, and when he is bad, well, you know that.

This series can really put a long distance between the Rangers and their next closet competition, and that would be a good thing seeing how the season ended in 2012. I am looking forward to watching what this team can accomplish with all the young talant this year.

Yu Darvish

The Rangers and Detroit are about to face off in a four game set this weekend, but that is now what everyone is talking about. Everyone is talking about tonight’s match up of Rangers ace Yu Darvish verses Tigers ace Justin Verlander. It is a highly intriguing match up, that is unless you are an offensive player in this game. Baseball reference tells us that Yu is 6-1 with a 2.73 ERA. He has pitched 52.2 innings, struck out an astonishing 80 batters while walking only 18. He has a whip of 0.911, a SO/9 of 13.7, a WAR of 1.5 and a RAR of 16. Darvish is in the top five in the AL in wins, win/loss percentage, walks & hits per 9 innings, hits per 9 innings, and strikeouts.

Justin Verlander is 4-3 with a 1.93 ERA. He has pitched 51.1 innings, struck out 57 while walking 18. His whip is 1.208, his so/9 is 10.0, he has a WAR of 2.1 and a RAR of 20. Verlander is in the top five in WAR for pitchers and ERA. So what do all of those numbers tell us? That hits are going to come at a premium in tonight’s game. Both the Rangers and the Tigers are going to have trouble putting the ball in play or even making contact. It should be another one of those stressful, down to the wire type games. I think this is one of the most anticipated games of the young 2013 season so far. In a different way, it is kind of like the game last season when C.J. Wilson came back for the first time and faced off against Darvish. And we all remember how that turned out. Darvish waited out the rain delay and Wilson did not.

Well hopefully there will be no rain delay to worry about tonight, or for the rest of the series for that matter. Tomorrow pits Nick Tepesch (3-3, 4.03 ERA) against Rick Porcello (1-2, 6.68 ERA). Nick has had some ups and downs of late but I trust him to come through at home and get the Rangers a win. Porcello has had a bad season so far, and we can all only hope that continues Friday Night. Saturday has Justin Grimm (2-3, 4.28 ERA) facing off against Anibal Sanchez (4-3, 2.05 ERA). Now that Alexi is injured (that was kind of shocking news today after the way he pitched last night), The Rangers really need the young guys to come through and keep them in games. I hope that both Justin and Nick are able to do just that. Saturday will be tough because Anibal is having a very good season so far.

The Finale of the series has Derek Holland (3-2, 2.93 ERA) coming off of a great start going up against Doug Fister (5-1, 3.06 ERA). If Derek can pitch at all like he did in his last start and limit the home runs, he has a great chance of getting his fourth win of the season, but this is another game that I believe will probably go down to the pen to win, and the Rangers have the better pen.

All in all, this series of two first place teams is shaping up to be a very fun series to watch, I just hope it turns out that way.

- Tied 2-2 heading into the 7th inning, Jeff Baker scraped home run about 4 feet beyond the right-field wall, which gave the Rangers a lead they ultimately would not capitulate. David Murphy added a solo shot of his own in the 9th — off a left-hander, no less — and the game ended that way.

4-2, good guys.

- Alexi Ogando again displayed suspect command of all his pitches, walking a season-high 4 in 5.2 IP. This is the 6th time in 8 starts that Ogando has failed to make it into the 7th inning, and by the way he’s been trending, I’m beginning to wonder if it might be a better idea for Colby Lewis to occupy Alexi’s spot in the rotation than either of their rookies — Justin Grimm or Nick Tepesch. Oh, and Martin Perez is going to be healthy soon, too.

My general feeling on Alexi is that, although he may be more valuable (from a FIP-wins perspective) over the course of the season pitching out as of the rotation, he would certainly be more effective coming from the ‘pen.

- After back-to-back years posting a wRC+ north of 90, Elvis Andrus currently sits at .259/.298/.322 (62 wRC+). Yet, given age and prior success, I’m not all that concerned. I’m not convinced he’s much better offensively than what he’s already shown in 4 Major League seasons, but at the minimum I still expect him to make it there.

No, I don’t think he’s a .300 hitter; I don’t think he’ll ever post a .380 on-base%. But he will get hot this year, and he will hit more home runs than he did in 2011 (5). Bank on it.

In 2013 his 23.0% line-drive% is more or less consistent with his career mean output (21.7%), and he’s cut his fly-ball% down from 20.8% to 16.4%.

Basically, Elvis Andrus is not a different hitter by any stretch of the imagination; he’s just a more improved version of the average-ish offensive player he’s been since coming to the bigs. The results just haven’t smacked you in the face yet.

- Today Yu Darvish takes on the same lineup in the same ballpark where he nearly threw a perfect game earlier this year. If ever the Rangers would be favored to win a game, it would be Darvish taking on Erik Bedard and one of the worst offenses in baseball.

So, naturally, expect Houston to win 11-2.