Rangers are catching a huge break this weekend against the big, bad Dodgers

The good news is the Rangers are 7-5 and sitting atop the AL West standings two weeks into the season. The bad news is the next team up on the docket is the big-spending, defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers.

Texas is heading to the West Coast for the first time and they drew the biggest bully on the block to start out their 10-game road trip. First out to Chavez Ravine, then Sacramento to face the Athletics and ending with a Seattle trip for an early season rematch with the Mariners.

As tough as this road trip will be, the Rangers are going to be getting a massive reprieve by avoiding the Dodgers two best starting pitchers in Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

The Rangers will avoid two of the best pitchers in the National League

The Rangers are scheduled to face the Dodgers' third, fourth, and fifth starters in Tyler Glasnow, Emmett Sheehan and Roki Sasaki.

They are all quality major league starters, but they are a far cry from the downright nasty, Cy Young-caliber hurlers Yamamoto and the two-way sensation Ohtani.

Glasnow is the best of the three pitchers the Rangers will see in LA. He has a plus four-seam fastball and hard-biting curve, and will mix in a good slider and sinker to keep hitters guessing. So far this season, he is 1-0 with a 3.00 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, and 15 strikeouts against just three walks in 12 innings pitched.

Sheehan and Sasaki have struggled early with ERAs of 8.00 and 7.00, respectively. Both have been knocked around, combining for 21 hits and four home runs in 18 innings. They have also walked a combined 10 batters.

Despite the problems at the back end of the rotation, the stacked Dodgers' roster has still gotten off to a 9-3 start with a league-leading +34 run differential.

Rangers need to take advantage of this fortuitous schedule

Japanese flamethrowers Yamamoto and Ohtani are on a completely different level than the starters the Rangers are scheduled to see when they get to LA. Good teams take advantage of scheduling favors, and this is a gift to get through the Dodgers without having to face their aces.

Last year's World Series MVP, Yamamoto is definitely a Cy Young contender and has already flashed great stuff on the way to a 2-1 start with a 2.50 ERA and 0.89 WHIP.

Ohtani has yet to give up an earned run through his first 12 innings while sporting a minuscule 0.75 WHIP. It goes without saying that he'll beat you up with his bat as well.

The Rangers will need to hit more like they did during their season-opening road trip against Philly and Baltimore, when they racked up 39 runs in six games while depending on their own tail end of the rotation, which has been solid so far this season. Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter will take the hill for the Rangers before the rotation flips back to Jacob deGrom, barring any setbacks with his knee.

Both Rocker and Leiter are yet to face the Dodgers in their career while deGrom has pitched against them 12 times, with his last being July 2025, where he threw seven innings of one run ball in a 3-0 Rangers' loss at Globe Life Field.

There is a chance to take advantage of the Dodgers' rotation this weekend and the Rangers would be missing a big opportunity if they didn't capitalize.