Nineteen games left. It’s always bittersweet when a season winds down, like shuttering a summer home for the winter. Or like what is happening to more and more concession stands in the Ballpark lately. They aren’t even bothering to open them. Apathy reigns. But the way the last two […]
Talk about parity. There are six teams that are fighting for that second wild card slot. Five of those six have 71 wins: Kansas City, Texas, Baltimore, Seattle, and Tampa Bay. The Royals and Rangers have 71 losses. The Orioles and Mariners have 72, and the Rays have 73. […]
You don’t straddle .500 for an entire season without having deficiencies. Often many. While the offense was an early-season problem, it hasn’t been of late. Prior to yesterday, the Rangers had scored double-digits in three of the seven September games, and no fewer than four runs in any game […]
Maybe this Rangers team has actually figured it out, whatever it is. Yesterday’s game was the kind they would normally have lost, getting in a hole early and never clawing back from. Martin Perez wasn’t great, but his offense bailed him out once again, roaring back from a […]
One of the two starters in the Rangers rotation named Martin Perez gets the start tonight. Which one it is will remain to be seen. Hopefully it will be the Martin Perez who has won six decisions in a row, with a 3.15 ERA, averaging seven innings per start, […]
The Rangers had a really great shot at a rare four-game winning streak. What they ended up with was a doubleheaders split. They also ended up leapfrogging over three teams in wild card race that nobody seems to want to win. So here is the deal: They have twenty-three […]
The old fashioned double header. I miss those days when it was actually scheduled, when you could go to the ballpark knowing you had five hours of baseball ahead of you. Now you get five hours of baseball in a typical 1-0 Rangers-Padres game, with twenty pitching changes and […]
While the Rangers cling onto their wild card hopes like Jack Dawson clung to that drifting piece of furniture in the frigid Atlantic in Titanic, it’s worth noting that the second wild card has historically been a team that has had a pretty good season. This year’s Race of […]
After a weekend series in which the Rangers’ overworked and undermanned bullpen was overtaxed yet again, blowing one game late and threatening to blow the other two against the Los Angeles Trouts of Mike Trout, the following is a public service to all major league managers on how to […]
An old nemesis showed up again last night in Arlington: the Rangers bullpen collapse. And while that was the Rangers’ nineteenth blown save of the season, you may be surprised to realize that last night’s blown save was the Rangers first since July 2. The bullpen went fifty-two games […]