Sport: MLBPick Selection: Rangers
At 2:05pm our complimentary selection is on the Texas Rangers over the Chicago Cubs. Rangers outfielder Sammy Sosa reached a rare milestone Wednesday night when he cracked his 600th career home run off of the Cubs' Jason Marquis. A couple of years ago steroid allegations were swirling around the veteran outfielder before he stopped playing, but now all seems to be forgiven upon a successful return albeit with a new team. Perhaps all that players like Mark McGwire and Juan Gonzalez need to do to fix their reputations is come out of retirement and set more milestones? But other than Sosa's remarkable comeback this year, not much else has gone right for Texas. Once again they have poor pitching (perhaps their worst pitching in years) and can't seem to get enough timely hitting to offset the problems. This afternoon, in the series finale against Sosa's former team, the Rangers will try and take 2 of 3 from the Cubs and will be relying on Vicente Padilla, who certainly could be a poster child for the Rangers' pitching woes. But there are several reasons to like Padilla and Texas tomorrow, not least of which is that he seems to pitch much better at home than on the road, and his opponent, lefty Ted Lilly is just the opposite. And despite having a poor ERA over his last 3 starts, Padilla's K to BB ratio has been outstanding (11:2). Also, Padilla's team has won 3 of his last 4 starts against the Cubs, and again the exact opposite is true of Lily (his teams have lost 3 of his last 4 vs. Texas). Finally, Texas is hitting a scorching .281 vs. lefties, so Sosa could very well begin his climb to #700 today. Take the Rangers. As always, good luck...Al McMordie.
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