August Could Be Rangers' Month

Throwing out Thursday night's makeup game with the Arizona Diamondbacks and their winning record, let's just say the Texas Rangers' August schedule officially begins with Friday night's series-opener in Oakland against the first-place A's.

It's the first game of a month that could be the difference in the 2013 AL West race between the two contending teams — the Rangers and the A's.

Looking at both teams' schedules for the month of August, it's blatantly clear that if the Rangers have any plans to win the division for the third time in four years, they're going to do it this month.

The Oakland A's play six teams with winning records this month, including the Rangers. In fact, if you gather up all of the A's opponents in August and combine their record, you get a 30-games-over-.500 mark at 501-471.

The Rangers' August schedule looks vastly different. Of all the teams they play this month, the A's are the only one with a winning record and they play four series against last-place teams — Milwaukee Brewers, Chicago White Sox and seven games against the Houston Astros.

The Rangers' opponents' combined record in August? A nice, crisp 134 games under .500 at 415-549.

If the Rangers can win this weekend's series in Oakland, or ideally come away with a three-game sweep they would have gone from a six-game hole to basically a dead heat in a week's time and would almost be expected to be back in first place by the time the calendar flips to September.

Copyright FREEL - NBC Local Media
Contact Us