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Tuesday, June 17, 1997

Texas on a roll since beginning interleague play

By JAIME ARON AP Sports Writer

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) - Coincidence or not, the beginning of interleague play seems to have brought out the best in the Texas Rangers.

After dropping the historic first AL-NL meeting Thursday night, Texas won the next three to build its longest winning streak since taking four straight May 9-12.

The Rangers head to Colorado for games Tuesday and Wednesday having won four of their last five. They've regained second in the AL West, two games behind Seattle with the Mariners coming to Texas for four games beginning Thursday.

"There is a difference in here," manager Johnny Oates said after Sunday's 7-4 victory over the San Diego Padres. "I can't put my finger on it, but I've been around long enough to realize it.

"It's something you can't define, but you know it's there. You can smell it."

It seems like every player contributed over the weekend. That's the way Texas won the AL West last year, but it hadn't been happening for the last half of May and early part of June.

"It's good to see the entire club playing well right now," said closer John Wetteland, who won Friday night's game against San Francisco and saved both games against the Padres.

"Even the game we lost to San Francisco (on Thursday) was a good baseball game, we just came up a bit short. Prior to that, we hadn't been playing good baseball."

Better health may be one reason. Leadoff hitter Mark McLemore returned from the disabled list Thursday and immediately reverted to his 1996 form, not the struggling start of this season. Set-up man Danny Patterson came off the DL on Friday and looked as good as he did before getting hurt.

Dean Palmer broke the longest homerless drought of his career Saturday night and Mike Simms ended his slump with a homer four pitches later. On Sunday, Lee Stevens also homered.

Damon Buford snapped an 0-for-20 skid Saturday, then tied his career-best with three hits Sunday. Will Clark's stretch of 13 games without an RBI ended Sunday.

Juan Gonzalez played the outfield Friday for the first time this season, and threw out a runner at the plate. Bill Ripken took the shortstop job from Benji Gil and has become the steady bat at the bottom of the lineup the team has lacked.

The bullpen hasn't allowed a run in 13 1-3 innings over five games. Long reliever Matt Whiteside won Saturday for the first time since Sept. 13, 1995, then Bobby Witt ended his three-game losing streak Sunday.

But the real star of the weekend was Rusty Greer, who put on a clinic over the four games with remarkable hitting, superb defense and aggressive baserunning.

Greer went 9-for-12 against NL pitchers with two doubles, two homers and four walks. He reached base nine straight times before striking out in the first inning Sunday and has been on 17 of 20 times since Wednesday.

Both homers came Friday night, the second with the game tied in the ninth inning. He also kept the Giants from going ahead in the seventh by making a sliding stop of Bill Mueller's double, then getting the ball to Ripken in time to throw out J.T. Snow at the plate.

On Saturday night, he doubled twice and scored an eighth-inning insurance run by tagging up to third on a medium fly ball to center field, then coming home on a wild pitch.

On Sunday, Greer was 1-for-3, got hit by a pitch, stole a base and made a nice catch against the wall in left field.

"Rusty seems to always be in a pretty good groove," Oates said. "He's a special player who does a lot of things well. That's the reason we hit him third and he plays every inning for us."Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
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