The Rangers were outhit by the Oakland Athletics by double and they didn’t have an extra-base hit in the ballgame, but the 5 runs they managed to get across the plate were enough for a 5-4 victory on Tuesday night. The Rangers are now back to .500 at 10-10 and are starting to look like possible contenders in the AL West. Last night being a rare exception, the Rangers are going to have to slug their way to victory for most of the season, but they might just have the bats to pull it off.

The bad news is that Josh Hamilton is injured right now and could go on the DL. They need that powerful bat in the middle of the lineup or everything starts to fall apart (see last night’s game as an example, even though it ended in a Rangers victory). What they could really use right now is the resurgence of Andruw Jones, who appears to have fixed the swing problems that caused him to hit under .200 last season and had many questioning if his once-Hall of Fame trajectory career was all but over. Jones is hitting .345 in limited play with the Rangers this season.

Tags: andruw jones, josh hamilton, oakland athletics, texas rangers