Angels fall 5 games back to Rangers‎

The Los Angeles Angels fall 5 games back  to Rangers‎ found out firsthand what the Oakland Athletics and Seattle Mariners discovered last week - the Texas Rangers are a difficult team to score against.

Alexi Ogando extended an extraordinary run by Texas pitchers with eight innings of four-hit ball and the streaking Rangers beat the sputtering Angels 7-0 Tuesday night for their 12 straight victory.

Texas' winning streak is the second-longest in club history behind a 14-game run in 1991, and it has put the Rangers (56-41) a season-high 15 games over .500. Tyler Chatwood (5-6) gave up three runs, seven hits and four walks in five innings. Ian Kinsler drove in Napoli with a single.

Napoli, who spent his first five big league seasons with the Angels, was 2 for 3 with a pair of walks and scored twice in his first game at Anaheim since Los Angeles traded him and Juan Rivera to Toronto for Vernon Wells on Jan. 21. Rangers part-owner and team president Nolan Ryan was scheduled to throw a first pitch and take part in a pregame ceremony inducting former Angels owner Gene Autry posthumously into the Angels Hall of Fame. Conger batted .214 in 50 games with five homers and 16 RBIs, and threw out only eight of 56 runners attempting to steal. Ryan's youngest son, Reese, was named after the Angels' former conditioning coach. Chatwood has allowed one home run over his last 11 starts and 66 2-3 innings, a two-run shot by Tampa Bay's Justin Ruggiano on June 6 at Angel Stadium.

The American League West standings show the Texas Rangers five games ahead of the Angels with more than two months to play, hardly an insurmountable deficit for the Angels.

The Angels fall 5 games back  to Rangers‎ won 20 of 27 games before the All-Star break, erasing all of the Rangers' five-game lead, but they've lost four of five games coming out of the break, going from one game behind Texas to five games back in six days.

The pitching staff has given up 23 earned runs in 108 innings for a 1.92 earned-run average, with five shutouts.

The Angels? The Rangers put plenty of pressure on starter Tyler Chatwood (5-6), who gave up three runs and seven hits and walked four in five innings, and reliever Michael Kohn, who gave up Chavez's two-run home run in the eighth inning and both ninth-inning shots.

It was this kind of night for the Angels: They hit consecutive doubles in the fifth inning … and didn't score.