The New York Yankees have their sights set on making the playoffs and facing the team with the worst overall record in the major leagues can only help that effort. Right now, the Yankees are four games behind Baltimore for the American League East lead and trail Toronto by one in the wild card race. After losing back-to-back games, the team needs to win their series against the slumping Texas Rangers in order to keep pace with their competition.

The playoff race is heating up and New York will aim to take advantage of their three-game series against the Rangers even though they open things up against Yu Darvish. Manager Joe Girardi is stressing the team avoids overlooking opponents despite the Rangers' 41-64 record on the year. Darvish can be a force with his 9-6 record and 2.92 ERA on the year. He has been roughed up lately falling to 1-2 with a 5.32 ERA over his last four starts. That includes a fine inning performance that was shortened by rain. Against the Yankees, Darvish is 2-1 with a 1.85 ERA in career starts.

The Yankees will start David Phelps who is in the midst of a strong stretch, going 2-0 with a 2.40 ERA in his last five outings, giving up two or fewer runs in each starts as he proves to be a solid replacement to the number of pitchers New York has lost this season. In his last start against the Rangers, he gave up one run in five innings.

Texas is not in a good way at the moment. They have scored just twelve runs in a stretch where they have lost five of their last six games. At this point, the team is setting their sights on next year as they cannot gain any consistency on offense. If the Yankees want to shorten the distance in the standings, getting a three-game series against the Rangers is the best way to do it.

Watch Yankees vs. Rangers live stream, click here.