Rangers Need to Find Hitting Stroke Soon

With all the talk surrounding the Texas Rangers’ collective psyche Friday afternoon, you’d think their clubhouse was in dire need of a few psychiatrist couches, not to mention a few psychiatrists.

But it doesn’t take a shrink to realize the New York Yankees have stolen the Rangers’ hitting mojo leading up to today’s Game 3 of the American League division series.

Texas, which led the league this season with a .293 batting average, has lost a division series-record eight consecutive games and scored only two runs in its last 51 innings of the division series against the Yankees.

Rafael Palmeiro said the Rangers need to pick up where they left off in the regular season.

“When the playoffs begin, you can’t worry about the hype,” said the Ranger designated hitter, who batted .324 with 47 homers and 148 RBIs this season. “You’ve just got to go out there, have fun, relax and play the game the way you played it the past six months. It’s all in the attitude, how you approach it.”

Palmeiro said the Yankee pitching staff has something to do with it.

“That’s part of the problem, and people don’t realize that,” he said. “We’re still facing the best team in baseball, and if you don’t play your best baseball, you’re not going to beat them.”

For the Rangers to avoid the sweep and prolong the series, they must beat Roger Clemens, who endured a less-than-satisfactory season by his standards.

“I don’t know if that makes a difference [tonight]” Texas Manager Johnny Oates said. “Again, any time Roger takes the mound, there’s that possibility of that outstanding game.”

*

Sure, Todd Zeile being traded by the Dodgers worked out in his favor, as far as his getting to the playoffs is concerned. But that doesn’t mean the trade didn’t sting.

After all, he’s a Southland native born in Van Nuys and living in Thousand Oaks.

Zeile was involved in the blockbuster seven-player trade that sent him and Mike Piazza to the Florida Marlins on May 16, 1998. Less than three months later, Zeile was shipped to the Rangers.

Although he has thrived as the Texas third baseman, Zeile does occasionally think about what his closer friends on the Dodgers--Mark Grudzielanek, Eric Karros and Todd Hundley--have had to endure under Fox’s corporate umbrella.

“Who knows what it would have been like if Mike and I had still been there and what would have been done in regard to free-agent signings,” Zeile said Friday. “That’s all speculation, we’ll never know. But it was disappointing for me to leave because it was home and I had so much history with the Dodger organization since I was a kid. So it was disappointing then and it’s disappointing to kind of see the corporate turn they took.”

Zeile’s fortunes have taken a different turn since leaving Chavez Ravine.

He has played on a back-to-back AL West Division winner and batted a career-best .293 this season with 24 home runs and 98 RBIs.

Obviously, Zeile is content as a Ranger.

“I think that they’ve kind of made [fired Dodger President Bob] Graziano the fall guy right now,” Zeile said of Fox. “But you’ve got to look at why a team with that kind of talent can’t win and see if it’s more intangibles [than talent].”

Tonight

YANKEES’ ROGER CLEMENS

(14-10, 4.60 ERA)

vs.

RANGERS’ ESTEBAN LOAIZA

(9-5, 4.56 ERA)

The Ballpark at Arlington, Texas

4:30 PDT

TV--Channel 4

* Update--Clemens, a five-time Cy Young Award winner, is 16-10 lifetime against Texas, 2-1 at the Ballpark in Arlington. He went 1-1 with a 4.96 ERA in three starts against the Rangers this season. Clemens, 37, will be making his 10th postseason start; Loaiza will be making his first. Loaiza, who started the season in the bullpen before joining the rotation midseason, went 1-0 with a 3.97 ERA in three appearances, including one start, against the Yankees this year.