"After two emphatic victories at Angel Stadium, the Texas Rangers' only remaining competition for another AL West title isn't looking like much competition at all.

Just don't expect the Rangers to acknowledge they can see October during an admittedly spectacular August.

Michael Young had three of the Rangers' 17 hits and drove in three runs, and Texas opened its biggest division lead of the season with a 7-3 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Tuesday night.

Derek Holland (11-4) yielded nine hits and fell one out shy of his fifth complete game for the defending AL champions, who have moved six games ahead the struggling Angels with wins in the first two games of this four-game series. Texas has taken control of the division race in the past week with a 41/2-game swing, yet the Rangers are playing it cool.

"We want to gain distance and gain a bigger lead against these guys, and they want the same thing," Holland said. "We're not going to sit and gloat on it, because they could easily come back."

Josh Hamilton homered in a three-hit performance before leaving with back spasms, and Mitch Moreland had a two-run single among his three hits in Texas' fifth straight victory — all on the road.

While Los Angeles has lost four straight for the first time since early June, Texas is a season-best 19 games over .500 (71-52) largely thanks to an offense that has scored at least seven runs in six of the past seven games. Young has six of Texas' 31 hits in the last two games, including a two-RBI single in the first inning Tuesday night.

"We know we can swing the bats," Texas manager Ron Washington said. "You never think you're going to come into Anaheim like that and put runs on them, but we've got a pretty good offensive team. When you swing the bats like that, everybody feeds off it."