For those who are interested, and I know a lot of people who are, Dave Magadan indicates "no, they aren't doing what I'm telling them:"  in the Dallas Morning News.

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Over the past few weeks, Rangers fans have watched with more interest possibly even than Angels fans as the latest Josh Hamilton saga has unfolded.  Josh's own great failures, his public relations miscues (many of which I've made fun of) and his cartoon-like image have once again come crashing down around him to once-again reveal a flawed individual who, unfortunately, doesn't have a recent history of superstar level performance to hold up as a shield for the mockery and insults.

The deplorable behavior by the Angels front office, clearly chasing dollars and trying to distance themselves from any responsibility in regards to Hamilton has actually managed to flip the situation upside down.  We should all be upset that Hamilton can't maintain control, that he let his fans down.  We should be coming to terms with accepting a lengthy suspension, one that deprives the aging and broken slugger of a few more months of whatever is left to use up in his body.

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Man, that game last night didn’t feel like Lewis threw three-hit, one-run ball. But Cyber-Colbra did it. And old man Beltre pulled off his second day of amazing defense; too bad he’s not hitting. But Prince, man. He was awesome. And I feel really good about Kela/Tolleson/Feliz. I think the Rangers have the best 7-8-9 group since Ogando/Scheppers/Nathan. It felt so good to hear Eric Nadel shout"and he struck him out swinging!” The bad news is that Choo is clearly still hurt. Or hurt again. Now, granted, he’s never been a defensive whiz, but the scuttlebutt is that he was pulled lateas muchbecause of injury concerns as defense. Bad contract is bad.

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I think it's significant that, in an 8 - 0 one-hit shutout, the first base gained all year by the Rangers was by Rougned Odor, and the first hit was by Ryan Rua.

To be fair, both Moreland and Fielder made the Oakland defense work hard, but Choo and Andrus were worryingly ineffective with their swings.  And I'm still not sold on Leonys hitting leadoff instead of Choo.  Granted, Sonny Gray was hitting the edge of the strike zone and getting the called strike, so we didn't get a lot of opportunity to see Rangers take many pitches...and when the late innings rolled around, Gray was throwing more balls and the Rangers were not swinging...so I don't think last night's effort was a red light for the offense.

But...if the Rangers are going to post a winning record this year they're gonna have to do better than they did last night.  I know it's accepted to say that a pitcher was just "on" and there was no way you were gonna get hits but I've never bought into that idea.  If nothing else, Gray laid in that first pitch strike right in the middle of the strike zone the first two times through the order, and almost no one ever swung at it.  That's on Dave Magadan, who should have been telling people to go after that first pitch.

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