It's called a genuine hot streak. Zimmerman finally gets relief Notebook Box score Game highlights Scouting report Saturday, thanks to a bunch of early offense for the third consecutive night and another solid start from Rick Helling, the Rangers beat San Diego, 8-1, to run their winning streak to five games. But they put themselves in position to start jumping ahead of some teams. To build a streak, you have to take one game, focus on it, win it and move on to the next one. By doing that, we've gotten back to .500 with a chance to finish the first half above it.
Early offense helps stoke the hot streak.
The Rangers scored twice in the first inning and each of the first three innings to take a 5-0 lead. They are 14-4 when they score multiple runs in the first inning. They have scored at least twice in the first inning in the last three games. Nobody on the staff seems to respond to early offense philosophy better than Helling. When he gets support, he can let his fastball do the work for him.