By Staff
KEN PETERS, AP Sports Writer
ANAHEIM, Calif. -- With Game 7 winner John Lackey on the mound, ThunderStix in the stands and the Rally Monkey on the scoreboard, the Anaheim Angels started this season the same way they began last year -- with a thud.
Alex Rodriguez, Juan Gonzalez and Michael Young homered, making manager Buck Showalter a winner in his Texas debut as the Rangers beat the World Series champion Angels 6-3 Sunday night in the major league opener.
Lackey was hit hard as the Angels dropped their fourth straight opener. Last year, they started off with a 6-0 loss to Cleveland and fell to a franchise-worst 6-14 before coming back.
After rousing pregame ceremonies that included the raising of the Angels' first World Series championship flag in their 42-year history, Young quieted the crowd with a three-run shot over the center-field wall off Lackey to give Texas a 4-2 lead in the fourth inning.
The Rangers rocked Lackey for five runs on eight hits in five innings. In his last outing, the 24-year-old right-hander became the first rookie to win the seventh game of a World Series in 93 years when he gave up one run in five innings of the Angels' 4-1 victory over San Francisco on Oct. 27.
Ismael Valdes made his first start in an opener and got the win against his former teammates, allowing three runs on seven hits in five innings.
Ugueth Urbina, signed as a free agent over the winter, pitched the ninth for the save. He had 40 last season for Boston last year.
Texas relievers combined for one-hit ball over four innings.
The Angels' runs came on an RBI single by Brad Fullmer in the first inning, another run-scoring single by Garret Anderson in the third, and Darin Erstad's RBI groundout in the fifth.
Rodriguez, hampered by a herniated disk in his neck this spring, made it 5-2 with a solo homer in the fifth. He began trotting almost as soon as the ball left his bat, and the ball landed deep in the left-field seats.
Rodriguez missed two weeks this spring because of the neck injury but played the final three exhibition games. He hasn't missed a regular-season game since signing a record 10-year, $252 million contract with the Rangers on Dec. 11 of 2000.
The homer was the 299th for the 27-year-old A-Rod, beginning his eighth full big league season. He went 1-for-5 and is 5-for-34 in season openers.
Gonzalez, coming back from an injury-plagued year, had a home run, double and single.
Besides the sea of red-clad fans in the sellout crowd of 43,525, there also was a strong red, white and blue theme. A huge ''USA'' was mowed into the outfield grass, there was a moment of silence for U.S. servicemen and a flyover by Navy fighter jets. The national anthem was played by the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force Band.
Tim Salmon, the Angels' senior member, helped raise the World Series flag near the left-field seats. Jackie Autry, widow of former team owner Gene Autry, also participated in the flag-raising ceremony.
Anaheim manager Mike Scioscia threw out the first ball, to his 14-year-old son, Matthew.
Notes: Only nine players on Texas' opening day roster were on the 25-man roster last year. The Angels kept their same lineup and starting rotation. … Showalter is 6-2 in openers, going 4-0 in 1992-95 with the New York Yankees, and 1-2 with Arizona in 1998-2000. … LHP Jarrod Washburn, who went 18-6 last year and would have been the opening day starter against the Rangers, instead pitched in a minor league game in Arizona on Sunday as he worked his way back from a shoulder injury. He's scheduled to start Saturday when the Angels are at Oakland. … Anaheim 3B Troy Glaus, the World Series MVP who missed six spring games because of tendinitis in his right wrist, batted sixth instead of his usual No. 5 spot, with Fullmer batting fifth.