from Jamey Newberg:

The list of solid national writers who have written columns since Prince Fielder’s deactivation suggesting that the Rangers take this opportunity to shop Adrian Beltre and Elvis Andrus and Alex Rios and Joakim Soria and Mitch Moreland and forfeit the number 30 pick in next week’s draft to sign Kendrys Morales RIGHT NOW is lengthy. Maybe the reflexes in my knee are completely shot (did I sleep on them wrong?), but I just don’t get it. It’s May.

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No, seriously.

Bat flies into the stands, a bunch of people try to grab the souvenir, one guy grabs it from the guy who mostly caught it and tries to pull it through his neck from behind.

He had to be beaten off.

There'll be a fire tomorrow night.

Bring marshmallows.

Or just make a run on the Nolan Ryan Real Beef hot dogs.

UPDATE: Here's what Wonderduck linked to:

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Prince Fielder has a herniated disc in his neck, has been dealing with the problem since last year.

Out of the lineup for a few days.

May require surgery.

The tiny silver lining is that this may explain Fielder's lack of hitting since last year, and his crash-diet-like search for better fitness programs.  And after this is fixed, he'll go back to mashing the ball.

On the other hand, you know what started Matt Harrison's trip on the DL last year?

Herniated disc.

#$%%^^&&&$

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UPDATE:  Martin Perez has announced that he is opting to undergo Tommy John surgery now, and is working with his agent to determine a schedule.

This sentence is the only thing I can say without swearing.

Martin Perez has a partially-torn UCL (ulnar collateral ligament, the thing that's repaired by Tommy John surgery) and Matt Harrison has a(nother) displaced vertebra.

Perez can try rehabbing for a few months to try to get the ligament to heal, which would allow him to return (if everything goes right) in August. Or he can go ahead and have Tommy John surgery performed, in which case he could be rehabbing in time for Spring Training 2015. However, he most likely wouldn't be pitching again until late 2015. And it's not uncommon for TJ surgery recipients to take another year to get their form and power back. A year-and-a-half is the expected recovery time, and two years is fairly common. Texas has done pretty well signing TJ surgery survivors starting their rehab year to two-year contracts, gambling they'll make a full recovery and provide a year of top-form pitching.

Harrison may need a spinal fusion. Once upon a time, that meant the end of any sports career, but many athletes have had the operation done and come back. Not many pitchers though, at least not at the professional level.

Nick Tepesch gets another chance at the rotation now, along with Nick Martinez, who had been shoring up the bullpen in every way imaginable, and probably two or three guys from AAA Round Rock, and maybe even your cousin if he can miss a bat every now and then.

This is getting ridiculous. When I read the tweet from Newberg, I screamed "You gotta be f****** kidding me!"

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The site was down for the last few days thanks to a serious RAID failure in the mee.nu and mu.nu server.  While the server is, obviously, back up; all picture uploads back to some time around March are gone forever.  Well, not forever; I still have most if not all of the pictures I uploaded, I just have to re-upload them and check all the link references.

That may not happen immediately.

If any of you are still paying close attention to the Rangers, you probably have noticed that they aren't playing with any kind of consistency.  A lot of Rangers bloggers have started trying to pinpoint the problems faced by the Texas team.  Talent doesn't seem to be an issue.  While Prince Fielder still hasn't produced *exactly* what Rangers fans were hoping, he isn't really slumping anymore and has been banging out few hits per game.  Choo is still getting on base.  But that's it.  The team plays with no energy or excitement.  Bloggers and fans who have attended games have repeated reported that batting practice looks as bad as the game performance does.

I maintain that the problem is in the clubhouse, and strongly suspect that the fastest way to reverse the Rangers fortunes involves a management shake-up.  Working on the coaching staff hasn't helped much.  I think it's fair to question hitting coach Dave Magadan's work, as the Rangers certainly aren't hitting and are showing similar tendencies to last year's team.  But I still primarily lay most of this at Ron Washington's feet, as I completely disagree with his tentative, kid-gloving, don't-ever-criticize, don't-call-it-a-mistake, losing-is-all-about-luck-not-performance coaching style.  Of course, it can be correctly argued that's the kind of things a coach/manager *must* say *in public*, as anything else causes clubhouse tension and gets you in trouble.  The problem is there is no evidence (that I can see) that this approach isn't actually the way he acts around his players.  It's certainly the way they play.

Anyway.  After Colby Lewis shut out the Astros, which is the kind of result one should expect from a good team playing Houston, Texas was completely befuddled by Dallas Keuchel.  Keuchel (prounounced Kai-cull) is a promising, legitimately talented pitcher; and he was certainly pitching well last night...but a good team has to find ways to hit a good pitcher.  It's things like this that make me wonder what exactly Dave Magadan is doing.

I don't have a picture of Jeremy Clarkson hitting himself with a baseball bat.  If you do, let me know.

Oh, and Matt Harrison left the game in the second inning with back stiffness, which explains the stiffness and velocity of his pitches last night.  But it also means he's out for a few weeks, and may be gone for another six months to a year.

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