Times wires
Sunday, April 3, 2011
ARLINGTON, Texas — Intentional or not, the Rangers sent a loud message this opening weekend.
They can still hit with the best of them. And, even without Cliff Lee, their pitching is good enough to make the reigning AL champs among the teams to beat this season.
Ian Kinsler and Nelson Cruz became the first set of teammates to homer in each of the first three games in a season, and Matt Harrison pitched Texas to a 5-1 victory over the Red Sox on Sunday and a sweep of their season-opening series.
Coming off their first World Series trip, the Rangers thumped this year's AL favorites, hitting 11 homers and outscoring them 26-11.
"It just makes a statement that we're here to try to duplicate last year, that we can do it against anybody," said David Murphy, who had the winning hit on opening day and got the Rangers going Sunday with a solo homer in the second inning. "We did it against a great team."
Boston fell to 0-3 for the first time since 1996. "We got outplayed all the way around," manager Terry Francona said.