Someone on twitter last night, after Rangers 6 Astros 2 happened, said Texas was now tied with New York.

"That can't be right," I said to myself.  "New York was something like five games up on Texas a week ago."

And yet, as I went to check the game time for today's match, there's Texas at 84 - 69, same as New York.  The two teams are four back of Toronto, who are one back of league-leading Kansas City, who hasn't been playing so hot lately.

In the National League, two teams are likely to pass 100 wins, and three more will likely pass 90.  The tradeoff is that the NL has six teams that may not pass 70 wins this year, while the AL has only one.  In the American League, there are nine teams that could still make 80 wins on the season, only four in the National League.

Is this parity or lop-sidedness?  The AL has led inter-league play this year, 162 - 129.  But, the AL usually dominates inter-league play, yet World Series victories since 1997 are evenly split at 9 - 9.

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The Rangers are 77 - 67, five games over .500 with 18 games left to play.  They also moved into first place in the American League West last night, beating Houston for the second straight game with a walkoff sacrifice fly by Mitch Moreland.

It's really hard to not expect more, because winning baseball is winning baseball, but it's important (for sanity's sake) to remember that not only were the Rangers not supposed to be here this season, they shouldn't even be here NOW.  Certainly this is a better team since the trade deadline, and since two starting pitchers returned from long injuries, but even then the Texas Rangers are a team that lose badly and win barely.

But that works, too; as long as you can keep it up.

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The Rangers needed Yovani Gallardo to step up when Darvish and Holland were lost to injuries. And while he hasn't seemed very exciting and doesn't always make it through the sixth inning...

Zack Greinke has allowed no runs in 10 starts, most in baseball. But who's 2nd? Not Kershaw, Arrieta or Keuchel. It's Yovani Gallardo (9)

— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) September 8, 2015

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...the Rangers are 70 - 62, 4 games over .500.  With 30 games left to play, their recent results put them on track to win 90.  Their year-long record says Texas will win 86.  The Houston Astros year-long record says they'll win 88.  Their recent record says Houston will finish with 87 wins.

At the beginning of the season, either L.A.A. or Seattle were supposed to win the A.L. West.  Oakland would come in third, Houston fourth with a record at or under .500, and Texas last; a few games behind Houston.

Even those of us who read Dave Cameron and said "ef you, Dave.  Texas may not win the division this year, but they have a lot more talent than you give them credit for..." didn't expect anything better than 83 wins.  And we would have been happy with 77.  The Texas Rangers didn't have a winning record last year.  In fact, they would have been the worst team in baseball if it weren't for the shakeup following the still-mysterious resignation of Ron Washington, which prompted the Tim Bogar-led Rangers to finish strong, jumping past Colorado and Arizona to finish 28th behind Minnesota and Houston.

Houston, incidentally, is leading the A.L. West (for now), Minnesota is in second in the A.L. Central and still fighting for a Wild Card berth, and Arizona is tied for third in the N.L. West with San Diego...not out of contention, and far better than the last place Rockies who are, once again, more than 20 games out of the division lead.

Still fighting for .500 ball, at the trade deadline Texas dealt from a deep bank of prospects to put in the winning bid for top-of-the-rotation Philly Cole Hamels, and then, like a bullied pre-schooler, shook their collective fists at the Astros.

"Just wait 'til Derek Holland gets back (again!)  Just wait 'til Martin Perez makes a full recovery from Tommy John surgery!  Just wait 'til our over-paid, under-appreciated, on-base-machine Right Fielder gets back from his months-long mental vacation!  Just wait 'til our Rule-Five pick outfielder that you guys dumped gets back from his hamstring injury!  Just wait 'til our General Manager proves once-again that, despite everything retired Dallas Curmudgeon Randy Galloway says, you *can* put together a lights-out bullpen with cheap trades from organizational depth and waiver-wire claims!"

We're not waiting anymore.  The Rangers have been the second-best team in the American League since June, behind the unbelievable Blue Jays.  Texas recently lost two of three to the Jays, and fans and players were pretty pissed off about it.  The first game was won until the Texas closer, Shawn Tolleson, came one in the ninth and clearly had nothing going.  He still managed to get two outs with a lead, but just couldn't hold it.

It was his second blown save of the year.  Yes, Texas Rangers think they should have won the Toronto series.  Of course, I'm sure Toronto says they could have swept.

The bottom line is, right now Houston is just in the way.  Hard-core Rangers fans have long-celebrated the reasonable, analytic approach taken by the Texas front office, and therefore admired the work done by Jeff Luhnow in Houston.  Texas fans know how good the Houston players are.  Sure, they've been a bit lucky that so many prospects hit jackpot at the same time, and early to boot.  But all the same...

Texas Rangers fans are eyeing Toronto.  They're relishing a chance to stomp on New York.  They want another shot at St. Louis.

The Houston Astros are just in the way.

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