While it's a well-known fact that Derek Holland has his hands full in his second start back from a four-month layoff against the lefty-murdering Blue Jays lineup, Tuesday night's series opener that pits Holland against fellow lefty Mark Buehrle could be a high-scoring affair on both sides.
The Blue Jays lead all of baseball in several categories against left-handed pitching, which could be one reason why the Rangers decided to skip Martin Perez's start this week, as they are tops in the game in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage against southpaws.
But quietly, the Rangers are putting up some pretty impressive numbers against left-handed pitching themselves as that was a major flaw in their lineup for much of the season.
The Rangers are just 19th overall in batting average against lefties and 21st in on-base percentage, but they move up to 13th in OPS. They lead all of baseball in home runs and RBIs against left-handed pitching. That's a bit misleading since they also lead all of baseball in at-bats against lefties because teams relentlessly throw left-handed pitchers at them, but with the acquisition of Mike Napoli and the resurgence of Adrian Beltre, the team has been hitting lefties better as of late.
Buehrle has faced the Rangers this year, at the end of June, and allowed just two runs in seven innings but the Rangers will look to do some more damage against him on Tuesday while Holland tries to limit the damage against him.
