ARLINGTON – It's easy to forget that Josh Hamilton is trying to complete his first full season in the major leagues. The 27-year-old American League MVP candidate is still a player adjusting to life as a full-time outfielder and, like other young Rangers, is experiencing growing pains.

Some of those were on display in Sunday's 4-3 loss to the Indians, who swept the Rangers. The loss dropped the Rangers to 63-68, the first time the club has fallen five games below. 500 since May 7. Texas has lost 14 of its last 17 games and finished its latest nine-game homestand 2-7.

Scoreless in the fourth, Hamilton charged a fly ball to left-center off the bat of Shin-Soo Choo but eased up right before he was set to lunge for it. He said he lost the ball. It rolled under his glove and to the wall for a run-scoring triple. Choo scored on a sacrifice fly moments later. It was a rare outfield mistake from Hamilton. He has four errors – Sunday's play wasn't scored an error – all season, his last one on June 17.

At the plate, the aggressive Hamilton finished the game 0-for-5, seeing 12 pitches. Indians starter Anthony Reyes walked Michael Young on four straight pitches in the third, and Hamilton, the next batter, swung on the first pitch, a change-up out of the strike zone. Hamilton fell behind 0-and-2 before chasing a change-up in the dirt, his 97th strikeout of the season.

"I'm getting fastballs to hit; I'm just not hitting them," said Hamilton, who was 2-for-13 in the series and is batting .300. He hasn't been below that mark since May 14. "That's frustrating."

Rangers manager Ron Washington said Hamilton, who has 52 walks this season, can walk 100 times a season and still put up big offensive numbers.

"I think sometimes Ham gives away a lot of at-bats," Washington said before the game. "He's chased some pitches. With maturity, he'll learn as he goes along to stop doing that."

While the Rangers wouldn't mind if Hamilton saw more pitches, they'd like for starter Vicente Padilla to to throw fewer. Padilla allowed three runs and had eight strikeouts, but he lasted five innings. He threw 97 pitches, 68 of them strikes.

No team has thrown more pitches this season than the Rangers, at nearly 156 per game before Sunday. Padilla, the workhorse of the staff, was averaging 16.8 pitches per inning before Sunday, 12th most among American League starters. Padilla was nearly three pitches ahead of that average Sunday.

Still, the Rangers tied the score in the eighth only to see it slip away when Eddie Guardado allowed a run in the ninth.

"I didn't do my job," Guardado said. "That's the way things are going for us right now. The frustrating part is we know we're better than this. Somewhere we've got to click it back together, and hopefully things turn around."