ARLINGTON – Sammy Sosa went hitless. Mark Teixeira struck out three times on his birthday. The Nos. 4-7 hitters failed to reach base in 16 at-bats, seven of which ended in strikeouts.

After the Rangers ended their first homestand with a 6-5 loss to Tampa Bay on Wednesday and saw their team batting average fall to .235, you could raise some questions about the depth of the lineup.

But to hear the Rangers talk, you'd be missing the point. Remember: This season is all about the pitching.

So the Rangers will remember they got four quality starts in the first six home games; they got three shutdown innings from their long reliever (Kameron Loe) Wednesday; and the starter (Robinson Tejeda) eventually decided to stop throwing high fastballs to an aggressive bunch of Tampa Bay hitters and stuck around a couple of extra innings.

Oh, and Eric Gagne is set to join the team the next time it plays.

And they will remember they won four of six at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. The two losses were both one-run defeats.

"We played well on the homestand," said shortstop Michael Young, who drove in four of the team's five runs Wednesday with his first two homers of the season. "Even tonight, I thought we were fine. I appreciated the fact that [Tejeda] battled and bounced back and gutted it out an extra two innings after getting down. We had consistently good effort the entire homestand. Overall, we played a good brand of baseball."

So, if it's all about the pitching, forget for a moment that the top seven hitters in the Rangers order were retired in order to end the game.

All seven outs came with the Rangers down by a run against what may be the worst bullpen in the league.

Focus instead on Tejeda.

Insistent on trying to throw fastballs to an aggressive and good-hitting young team, he fell behind early. He allowed single runs in the first and second and four in the third. Then, he started throwing fastballs down in the zone, mixing in more offspeed pitches, and was able to get through an extra two innings.

"He battled back," catcher Gerald Laird said. "It tells a lot about the person when a guy gets hit around and he's got the composure to settle down and get back in the ball game. I admire the way he did that."

Said manager Ron Washington: "He has something to grow on. The last two innings were good. It wasn't a total loss."

MIKE STONE / Special to DMN

Rangers starting pitcher Robinson Tejeda watches Carlos Pena complete his third-inning home run.

In the home opener against a discerning Boston team, Tejeda threw strikes early in the count and the Red Sox simply watched them. It played to his advantage. He got ahead and forced them to swing at pitches he wanted them to hit.

The same game plan didn't work against Tampa Bay. Those fastballs up in the zone? The Devil Rays swung at them before Tejeda could get ahead in the count.

"For me, I don't see any difference in the way I pitched from the first game," Tejeda said. "In the first game, I was aggressive on every pitch and that's the way I thought I pitched tonight."

The Rangers, down 6-1 after three innings, rallied after Tejeda finally held Tampa Bay scoreless. Ian Kinsler led off the sixth with his fourth homer of the season. Young hit a three-run homer after a single by Kenny Lofton and an error on Frank Catalanotto's ground ball. It brought the Rangers within a run. They got no closer.