Rangers knock around potential trade target Roy Oswalt

Teams will often acquire players who have done well against them, which is natural on one level and kind of silly on another. For instance, a couple years ago the Twins acquired veteran outfielder Craig Monroe from the Cubs and repeatedly talked about how he was a career .321 hitter against them. Monroe went on to hit .202 in 58 games for the Twins, who released him in August. I bring all of this up partly because I’m still bitter about the Twins wasting $3.8 million on Monroe and partly because the Rangers knocked Roy Oswalt around yesterday after various reports put them in the mix for the Astros’ on-the-block right-hander. Oswalt coughed up a season-high eight runs, including homers to Josh Hamilton and Michael Young, and fell to 4-6 with a 4.54 ERA in 12 career starts against the Rangers. Afterward manager Ron Washington stressed that Oswalt “still looked like he had something left” despite the poor outing, which is definitely true. Thanks to horrendous run support from Houston’s terrible lineup (and the occasional clunker like he turned in yesterday) Oswalt leads the league with 10 losses compared to just five wins, but don’t let that fool you into thinking he’s pitched poorly. Oswalt has a 3.55 ERA, .231 opponents’ batting average, and 97/29 K/BB ratio in 104 innings, which is certainly good enough for him to be 10-5 instead of 5-10. Of course, also worth noting is that Oswalt has a 3.73 ERA in 28 career interleague starts, compared to a 3.20 mark in the NL.