On Deck: Yankees

On Deck will be here all season to provide you with everything you need to know (and a few things you don't) about every Rangers series during the 2014 season. 

The Opponent: The Yankees are battered and aging, but they're coming off a three-game sweep of the equally battered Reds and have moved into a tie for second place in the AL East.

Past 2014 Meetings: This is the first meeting between the teams this year, but the Rangers went 4-2 against the Bronx Bombers last season. Of course, that was a different Rangers team.

Pitching Matchups: Monday — Miles Mikolas (0-2, 10.05 ERA) vs. Shane Greene (2-0, 1.32); Tuesday — Nick Martinez (1-6, 5.10) vs. Chase Whitley (4-3, 5.10); Wednesday — Yu Darvish (9-5, 2.88) vs. David Phelps (4-4, 3.87); Thursday — Colby Lewis (6-7, 6.37) vs. Brandon McCarthy (1-0, 1.42).

What's Hot: Rookie second baseman Rougned Odor is batting .400 in his last three games with a double and a triple. Darvish allowed a run in 6 2/3 innings and fanned 12 batters in his last outing on Friday night in Toronto, as he bounced back from a string of rough outings.

Jacoby Ellsbury is batting .500 with a double, a homer and three RBIs in the Yankees' first three games of the season's second half. McCarthy has been good in his brief Yankees stint, and in his last outing, he worked six innings and allowed just one run — a solo homer.

What's Not: Neftali Feliz made his second-half debut on Sunday and allowed a key go-ahead home run in the late innings. Adrian Beltre is 2-for-12 in his last three games with a homer, and the hot start for Jake Smolinski's big-league career has cooled off, as he's also 2-for-12 in those last three games.

Mark Teixeira is 0-for-12 in his last three games, while Ichiro Suzuki is 1-for-12 in that same span of games.

Familiar Faces: Mark Teixeira spent the first 4 1/2 seasons of his big-league career in Texas before he was shipped off to the Atlanta Braves prior to the 2008 trade deadline in exchange for Elvis Andrus, Matt Harrison, Neftali Feliz and Jarrod Saltalamacchia in a trade that shaped the Rangers franchise.

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