4 1/2 games up after the sweep yesterday and Anaheim’s loss to the M’s. 

Evan Grant says Scott Feldman had some mechanical issues yesterday, but managed to work through them to give the Rangers six solid innings in the nightcap.

Jeff Miller writes that Tommy Hunter didn’t get the win in game 1, but did his job in terms of giving the Rangers some innings and keeping them in the game, allowing them to come back in the late innings to get the win.

The Rangers made room for Hunter by putting Matt Harrison on the disabled list, but Vicente Padilla says he feels good and will be ready to make his start on Tuesday, which allows the Rangers to just slide Padilla into Harrison’s spot in the rotation, with Derek Holland remaining in the rotation for now.

Miller also has a piece up about Ian Kinsler sparking the offense by working the count and drawing walks in game 1, which allowed him to get on base despite his recent struggles with getting the ball to fall in.

Ron Washington says Andruw Jones is going to keep playing against most lefties — he’s missed only one start against a LHP this year — but may start getting a few more ABs against righties.  With both Hank Blalock and Chris Davis having offensive issues so far this year, Jones’ presence and production has been huge.

T.R. Sullivan says that with the Rangers facing five lefties in the next 7 days, Hank Blalock could find himself riding the bench quite a bit in the next week.  Blalock is hitting .163/.182/.256 against LHPs this season.

Jean-Jacques Taylor has a column up about chiding those who think the Rangers efforts to make their starters throw more innings will lead to injuries, saying that pitchers will adapt once they aren’t babied, and besides, if a pitcher can’t handle the workload, well, the Rangers don’t need him anyway.