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.

Posted by: Ben at 08:52 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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