Rangers at Yankees

The New York Yankees begin a 3 game series with the Texas Rangers tonight from Yankee Stadium. The game is at 7:05 on the YES network. Here are the pregame notes and lineup via the Lohud Yankees Blog at http://lhblogs.com. The Yankees are 27-9 since the all star break and have won 16 of their last 20. The Rangers have lost 4 of 6 and trail the Red Sox by 1 1/2 in the race for the wildcard. The Yankees are 4-2 against Texas this season. They are 27-12 against them over the last 5 seasons. Joba is pitching for the first time tonight since August 16th. He is 4-1 with a 3.35 era since the all star break. He is 1-1 with a 6.75 in his last 3 starts though, allowing 12 runs on 18 hits with 12 walks in his last 16 innings. Joba has a 7.11 career era against Texas in 3 starts with no record. Derek Jeter needs 20 more hits to tie Lou Gehrig for the franchise record. Yankees Lineup: Jeter(SS) Damon(LF) Tex(1B) A-rod(3B) Matsui(DH) Posada(C) Cano(2B) Swisher(RF) Cabrera(CF) The Yankees lead the Angels by 2 games in the loss column for home field advantage throughout the playoffs. This is the only real race the Yankees are in as they have 38 games left, the Angels have 40. The two teams will meet 4 more times, once in a makeup game at Yankee Stadium and a 3 game series in Anaheim. The Yankees will try and get it but not at the expense of injurying or wearing out their players. This will be fun to keep an eye on, my guess is the Yankees will win it but it may just come down to the 4 head to head games and the Yankees need to show they can beat the Angels.