A team he hopes to play for someday...

The Texas Rangers beat Felix Hernandez (again) 1 - 0 (again, I think) last night. Behind Nick Tepesch, who has been looking once again like a AAAA pitcher...someone too good for AAA, but not good enough for the big team. So that was nice. I doubt they win the next two games, but the Rangers have twenty wins against Hernandez, so it wasn't (bizarrely) unexpected.

The best news of the week though is that Joey Gallo, promoted from Hi-A to AA Frisco five days ago, has the following stat line for Frisco:

.368/.455/.1053 1-2B,4-HR,10-RBI,20 total bases, 3-BB,8-SO.

Gallo was promoted to Frisco because High-A pitchers were clearly not challenging him anymore. Literally. Everyone knew he would probably hit it, you couldn't throw it where he couldn't unless you walked him. Gallo was drawing intentional walks in the tuning and polishing league. No point in leaving him there.

If this keeps up, I imagine Texas wants to see his walk and strikeout rate drop a bit. However, I'm gonna quote Newberg again:

Joey Gallo’s fourth home run in five days as a RoughRider on Friday doesn’t even register as high on the "Holy S” scale, but I would point out that last night’s bomb in Corpus gave him 13 road homers for the season (in only 31 games), and he has gone deep this year on April 13, on May 13, and on June 13. Then again, really, it feels like the odds were only slightly against that, and I’m no longer going to upbraid anyone who suggests to me that Gallo could be in Arlington before September 13.

Posted by: Ben at 01:30 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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One step forward and two steps back...

Darvish finally achieves something that some of his teammates thought he had already accomplished:

Shin-Soo Choo thought it had been done before. So did catcher Chris Gimenez.

Both were surprised to learn that Yu Darvish had never thrown a complete game. He had flirted with perfect games and no-hitters, but had never gone the distance.

Until Wednesday night.

Darvish had another gem in his young career, delivering a complete-game shutout for the first time in a 6-0 victory over the Marlins.

"First time? I didn’t know that,” Choo said.

"I figured he had 15 or so,” Gimenez said.

In related news, Tanner Scheppers, who came off the DL I think it was last week, has returned to the DL for probably the rest of the season.  Rangers management has been somewhat curt and angry when answering questions about Scheppers, so I suspect that his elbow wasn't actually healed in any way when he came off the DL and he didn't tell anyone.

Also, in the second game after coming off the DL for a broken little finger, Jim Adduci broke it again sliding into a base.  He's having pins put in it now, and will probably miss the rest of the season.

The Rangers trainer has been added to the All-Star team.  Probably as a National League selection.

Posted by: Ben at 08:19 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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You can't make this up (again)...

Rougned Odor sprained his shoulder (or worse) sliding back into 1B today.  At the time it was announced, Brandon Land at One Strike Away wrote this:

As far as replacements, it would appear that, at least for now, Donnie Murphy will get the bulk of the playing time(Note: As I typed this, Murphy was hit by a pitch on his left elbow).

Ha ha.  Ha ha ha.

Posted by: Ben at 04:45 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Everything's fine...

Posted by: Ben at 11:31 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Spoiled...

Its weird that allowing 4 runs in 7 innings in a win seems like a letdown, but that's how Yu has spoiled us.  -- ^{_{Adam J. Morris following a 6-4 win over Cleveland}}

That really sums up what it means to be a Rangers fan right now.  After tearing Detroit apart in 3 out of 4 games, the newly dominant Rangers went on to be decimated (in the modern sense of the word) in the nation's capital by a mostly mediocre Nationals team, then returned home to be spanked by the Rangers East, who haven't been all that great themselves.

The bottom line is, Rangers fandom has been spoiled (and I don't mean that in a bad way) for several years by some really good Texas teams for whom doing badly means not having a 90-win season.  Now we're watching a team that *actually* won't reach 90; in fact the current incarnation of the Rangers are on track for something around 84 wins.

And you know what?  We're still spoiled.  Over a quarter of the original 40-man roster is on the disabled list.  Four of the position players are rookies.  This team should be under .500.  We should be expecting 74 wins, not 84.

Here's where I get speculative.  Watching this group play, I think the Rangers could still hit 90 wins.  I think the talent is there.  Here's the paradox though...I think the manager that is partially responsible for these guys heading for a marginally winning record instead of a losing record is also the reason this team can't reach 90.  In my opinion, Ron Washington will also continue having winning records and playoff appearances, but will never win a World Series.  I want to re-iterate, this is *my opinion*.  I can't prove any of it, although I can argue a few specifics regarding Washington's in-game management...which most people agree with anyway.  There's no way to prove what those failings mean in real wins.

I think Texas, with a better manager, will be a better team than they are now.  I don't know who that is, at least not long term.  I think in the short term, for this year, they need an ass-kicker.  Unless  you're one of his *special kids*, Wash is a hugger.  A consoler.  He wants you to keep you head up and keep trying.  He believes in the narrative and tradition of baseball driving the game, instead of the other way around (except, of course, for hero players who change the worst parts of the game and make them better).  He believes, I suspect, that changing who takes out the lineup card has more effect on outcomes than how the shift is employed.

In summary:  The Texas Rangers are better than they should be with Ron Washington as skipper, but they'll never be as good as the could be.

Posted by: Ben at 09:15 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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