The division races are over in the American League. In the West, it’s been over since May 22, when the Astros took a six-game lead over the division, and their lead has only grown since then. The Red Sox are comfortably settling into winning the East, and the Indians […]
A manager needs a bullpen he can trust. With the Rangers, it seems to be just one guy. Alex Claudio. He is Jeff Banister’s sixth-inning guy, his seventh-inning guy, his eighth-inning guy, his closer. He has been a long man, a short man, a starter. Anything Claudio has been […]
The last four games were frustrating. The next four games are critical. Despite splitting two of four with the lowly Chicago White Sox, the Rangers just finished their second-best home stand of the season, winning seven of ten, in which they took two out of three against Houston, and […]
Jon Daniels’s resumé for developing pitching was on display last night. He’s lucky he isn’t in the real world. He’d have trouble landing a job at Taco Bell. The two best major league pitchers he has developed for the Rangers faced one another last night. Best being a relative […]
Out of 121 games the Rangers have played so far this year, they’ve been above .500 just ten days. And not at all since beating Cleveland on June 27 to go 39-38. For the past 44 games, they have been unsuccessfully pushing that rock up a hill. They failed […]
Sixty wins. Sixty loses. Welcome back to .500, Rangers. It’s been a while. July 15, to be exact. And June 28 before that. And mid-May before that. Every Rangers ride to .500 has been on the tail of a comet. A ten-game winning streak in May against the worst […]
The cosmic tumblers were bound to line up in the Rangers favor eventually. All those hitters hovering in the low .200s were going to get hits eventually. Eventually arrived with the Detroit Tigers and their woeful pitching. It helped that the Tigers brought into the Ballpark the worst ERA […]
The Rangers offense is rolling. Their starters are keeping them in games. Their bullpen is reliable. This team is playing great baseball right now. The Rangers, in fact, are playing their best stretch of baseball since their ten-game winning streak in May. They’ve won eight of their last twelve […]
It was the best Rangers game of the season. It just took 117 games for it to arrive. Situational hitting, bunting, sacrificing, smart base running, stellar defense, strong pitching. And, of course, a home run. This was reminiscent of Rangers teams of the previous seven years. Teams where everyone […]
It’s hard to make up ground in the wild card race when you’re first in line. It’s exponentially harder to make it the further down the line you are. That’s what the Rangers are finding out. The hard way. When you hear that the Rangers are only 3.5 behind […]
