Rangers hit 11 home runs in sweep of Bosox

ARLINGTON, Texas -- Intentional or not, the Texas Rangers sent a loud message this opening weekend.

They can still hit with the best of them. And even without Cliff Lee, their pitching is good enough to make the defending AL champs among the teams to beat this season.

Ian Kinsler and Nelson Cruz became the first set of teammates to homer in each of the first three games in a season, and Matt Harrison pitched the Rangers to a 5-1 victory over the Red Sox Sunday and a sweep of their season-opening series.

Coming off their first trip to the World Series, the Rangers really thumped this year's AL favorites, hitting 11 home runs on the way to outscoring them 26-11 in the series.

"It just makes a statement that we're here to try to duplicate last year, that we can do it against anybody," said David Murphy, who had the winning hit on Opening Day and got the Rangers going Sunday with a solo homer in the second inning. "We did it against a great team."

Boston fell to 0-3 for the first time since 1996, a season that began 0-5. The Red Sox are off Monday, then will try to snap out of their funk starting Tuesday in Cleveland.

"We got outplayed all the way around," Boston manager Terry Francona said. "They hit better than us, they pitched better than us. Now we've got to regroup and get us a win so we can feel better about ourselves."