We are finally to Opening Day 2016 for the Texas Rangers. It has been a very long winter since the Jose Bautista bat flip heard around the world. A winter of discontent among the players and fans. Winter is … Continue reading →
Welcome to the 2016 Season. It has been a while since I have wrote about the Rangers. That is what having a full-time job and a pregnant wife will do to you is give you less time to write and think about baseball. Here we are though and we are now 1 month away from Opening Day 2016. Hopes are high for the defending AL West Champion Texas Rangers. They return the core of a team that shocked everyone last season and rallied from last place in May to first place in October. The 2015 season was quite the ride and now as we head into the 2016 season the Rangers attempt to build on that success. It will not be easy though as the Houston Astros seem primed to take that next step in their rebuilding process and win the division. The Seattle Mariners, who were the one team in the division that the Rangers struggled against, will look to rebound from a very disappointing 2015 campaign. Just like any other baseball season it promises to be a season of highs and lows and as a fan I can’t wait to see where it takes us.
We are now one week into the full squad workouts and two games into the exhibition season and things are looking good. They signed former Washington Nationals shortstop Ian Desmond to fill their hole in left field. He is a right-handed bat that has power and could go a long way toward helping the lineup not be so left-handed heavy as it was last season. He also is someone the team can rely on to be in the lineup day-in and day-out. He signed for 1 year/8 million and so he will play this season and then the team will be ready to hand left field over to one of the Nomar Mazara/Lewis Brinson/Joey Gallo trio. I expect one or all of them to be on the major league roster next season in a full-time capacity. He will see his first game action today as the Rangers face the LA Dodgers in game 3 of the Cactus League season.
In other news Yu Darvish continues to progress in his journey back from Tommy John surgery. He has advanced from throwing on flat ground to throwing off a half mound, and on Monday he threw off a full mound with no pain. He has not experienced any side-effects in the days since. He still continues to be on track to make his debut in mid-May to early-June. The plan is to continue to bring him along slowly so that the innings count is not an issue come September and hopefully October. That will be a big addition to the team and will help strengthen their rotation.
Finally, in actual game action the Rangers won their first two Cactus League games. They beat the defending champions Kansas City Royals in both games. They won the first game 6-2 and then beat the Royals again yesterday 10-0. The star of both of games has been outfield uber prospect Nomar Mazara. He has a hit in 8 of his first 9 plate appearances combined between the two games against the Royals and the Rangers intersquad scrimmage earlier this week. He likely will not be making the team out of Spring Training as the Rangers want him to continue to develop in AAA Round Rock, but if he continues to hit a good clip he will make it very hard for the Rangers to send him down. It still is very early though as pitchers are nowhere near ready to start the season. It is to be expected that hitters would have the upper hand at this point. Manager Jeff Banister was asked about Mazara’s chances at making the team after the first game and all he had to say was that Mazara had a good day. Baseball is not about having good days. Baseball is about stringing together several good days and being able to learn from the bad days. It is a marathon and not a sprint and while the organization may not have many competitions going on this spring, a lot could happen between now and Opening Day.
The competitions that I will be keeping my eye on this Spring is who will be the number 5 starter, who will be the utility infielder, who will be extra outfielder that the Rangers will carry, and who will the backup catcher be. The Opening Day rotation will look like this in no particular order: Cole Hamels, Colby Lewis, Derek Holland, and Martin Perez. The 5th starter competition consists of Chi Chi Gonzalez, Nick Martinez, Cesar Ramos, Jeremy Guthrie, and Nick Tepesch. A lot of viable candidates in there. I am sure the team would love to see Chi Chi really claim that spot, but they will not give it to him if he doesn’t earn it though. As far as the utility infield spot it is Hanser Albertos to lose. He has the most experience but other guys like Doug Bernier, Drew Robinson, and even Jurickson Profar will all be trying to take that spot. Profar who hasn’t played in a MLB game since 2013 is finally healthy and able to throw. The plan is to work him slowly along and have him start the season in AAA Round Rock and then maybe bring him up later in the season. He could speed those plans along though if he plays well here in Arizona. The extra outfielder will be a competition between Jason Jones,
Joey Gallo makes his Texas Rangers Debut on June 2nd.
May was a great month for the Rangers, but at the very end the team suffered losses off the field in losing Adrian Beltre to a thumb injury and Josh Hamilton to a hamstring injury. They were in good position in the standings, but could they remain there while these players recovered? The other question became who would replace Beltre at 3rd? Would it be Ed Lucas or Thomas Fields? Would they bring up Odor from AAA and shift Alberto to 3rd? The completely out of the box idea was to bring Joey Gallo up from AA and have him play 3rd, but the though with that was that he was not ready for MLB pitching. The Rangers started the month with an off day before continuing their homestand against the Chicago White Sox. Word started leaking out the Rangers were considering bringing up Joey Gallo. Then late Monday afternoon it became official that Rangers prospect Joey Gallo would make his long anticipated MLB debut on Tuesday night. We would be able to see if he could contribute and fill that hole left in the lineup by Beltre. Lot of debate on both sides of this, is this harming his long term development, is he ready, and the other side saying why not, it gives the lineup another power threat. Up to this point in the season that Tuesday night game was the most excited I have been about watching a Rangers game in 2015. No one knew what to expect. None of the experts, coaches, or anyone knew how he would perform. I was expecting maybe a hit and 3 strikeouts going up against Jeff Szmardija. That is not even close to what we got. I will just let the video do the talking.
He hit a home run, a double, and a single. He was magnificent and helped lead the Rangers to a 15-2 win. It was eye opening really and showed the potential that he has. As a fan I knew that he wouldn’t do that every night, but it was great to see in his debut. That went to show that the Rangers might be able to survive this stretch. It was not going to be easy and the schedule was filled with lose able games, but if the Rangers could play close to or at .500 ball for the month I thought they would be okay for the long run.
The first half of the month they played a lot better than that though. They ended up winning 2 of 3 against the White Sox, 2 of 3 against the Royals and that gave them a 7-3 homestand and I believe their first winning homestand of the season. The offense was clicking during this stretch, Prince Fielder cooled down from his red hot May, and the team as a whole was playing well. What also changed was that at the end of May Jeff Bannister instituted a no-roles bullpen meaning that he could bring in whoever he thought was best for the situation. That ended up turning back into a roles bullpen midway through June, but the new role that was most important was Shawn Tolleson had become the new closer. He took over for an ineffective Neftali Feliz, who became a setup pitcher. Feliz, the once dominant closer, still had not regained his form from 2010-2011. The velocity was not there which made the secondary pitches less effective. After a month and a half of rough outings Bannister made Tolleson the closer and never looked back. Tolleson captured that role and helped to solidify the back end of the bullpen. It allowed the Rangers to hold on to those close games that they were losing in April and May.
The team just kept rolling though despite the injuries, they did lose a series on the road to the A’s. The won the first game, but lost the next two. The bullpen blew one game and Scott Kazmir dominated them in the other. The good thing through this point was that Chi Chi Gonzalez was still pitching well. He had taken over Ross Detwiler’s spot in the rotation in late May and was living up to the hype. He had nearly made the team out of Spring Training. He was one of the last cuts, but he went down to AAA and still pitched well and so when the Rangers decided they had given Detwiler enough opportunities they decided to bring Gonzalez up and see what he could do. At this point the team was just trying to make it till guys like Martin Perez, Matt Harrison, and Derek Holland could come back. Wandy was starting to cool down by this point in this season and looked to be on his last legs, but they did not really have a great alternative. The pitcher who was throwing well was Yovanni Gallardo. This was his best month of the season and he helped to carry the Rangers through this difficult stretch. He gave up 2 earned runs the entire month of June, pitched at least 7 innings in 3 of the starts, and helped the team win 3 of his 5 starts. He was great.
The turning point of the month though was when Delino Deshields pulled up lame with a hamstring injury on June 14th. The Rangers had won the first two games against the Twins, but lost on this Sunday and lost Deshields to the DL after this injury. The Rangers at this point called Odor back up to majors. While in AAA he had hit for a .352 BA, 5 home runs, and slugged .639. He really played well and the Rangers thought he was ready. So they threw him out there and he was ready and looked like the old Roughned Odor. This Odor would help the Rangers win the next three games against the Dodgers. They won the first two at home and including a walk off win off the bat of Robinson Chirinos in the second game. Then the series shifted to Los Angeles for the next two games. They would face Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke. Joey Gallo had another one of those moments in LA against Kershaw.
He hit a monster shot off of Kershaw. Left-handers don’t normally do that against him, and left handed rookies definitely don’t do that. It was like Vin Scully said “a marble”. Just unreal and helped this team who had struggled against left-handers all season long beat perhaps the best left handed pitcher in all of baseball and win this 4 game series against the Dodgers. They did lose against Zack Greinke in the finale of the series, but even then it was only a 1-0 loss and it ended with a walk-off balk by Keone Kela. Anthony Ranaudo had started the game and pitched very well. The Rangers would then go to Chicago to face another tough lefty in Chris Sale, and while they did not do anything against Sale except for strike out 12 times, Colby Lewis kept them in the game by holding the White Sox to just one run. Then in the 9th, Mitch Moreland was brought on as a pinch hitter to face David Robertson with two runners on base and he did this.
He gave the Rangers the lead and the win. Remarkably enough the Rangers had not only survived this stretch without Beltre, Hamilton, and Deshields now, but they were winning a lot of games. They were at their high point of 6 games over .500 at 37-31, in second place in the West, and only 2.5 games behind the Astros. Things were looking really good. At this point only a matter of a week or so till Beltre and Hamilton both came back. Ryan Rua had just come back from the heel injury, and so things were looking like they might be able to catch the Astros before the All Star Break. That is normally the time when things start to take a turn south and boy did they ever for the Rangers. The injuries and all the tough pitchers that they faced took a toll on the whole team. They had been winning games for about a week or so at this point with smoke and mirrors. They were not scoring a high amount of runs, but were pitching just well enough to win games. After beating Chris Sale and the White Sox that changed. The pitching was still good, but the offense kept just scoring 2 runs, while the pitching was allowing 3. That caused them to lose the next two games in Chicago. Then the team went back home to face the A’s in a 3 game series and lost all 3 games as the pitching got a lot worse. Adrian Beltre did come back during this homestand, but it would take him while to get his timing back as he was learning to play with his injured thumb. Beltre coming back though did not help the pitching. Wandy Rodriguez started to only throw well on the road and throw up clunkers at home. The league caught up to Chi Chi and he started to not be as effective and Joey Gallo started striking out a lot more and being less effective. Hanser Alberto who had filled in a 2nd and 3rd was also not hitting and Prince Fielder had massively cooled down without Beltre in the lineup. Roughned Odor had come back and was playing great, but unfortunately no one else was. It was hard to win games. All of this would lead to the A’s sweeping them at home and then the Blue Jays took the first game of the series to end what had become a 6 game losing streak and just like that they were back at .500 and 5.0 games back in the division. Thankfully it was Yovanni Gallardo’s turn in the rotation. He would go up against the Blue Jays on that Saturday and would shut them out and help the team end that long losing streak. That was a trend this season was Gallardo pitching well against the Blue Jays. His being right handed and being able to pitch on the corners allowed him to be able to stay away from the power zones of the Blue Jays hitters. They would go on to lose the next day, but Chi Chi pitched well other than just one inning, but the offense couldn’t get enough runs to win the game. Then to end the month the Rangers went to a Baltimore and since it was on the road Wandy pitched well. He was great in this start as he pitched 5 innings, giving up 1 run, and striking out 7 and the Rangers won 8-1. Then on the final day of the month the Rangers won again 8-6 this time behind a good start from Colby Lewis and great offensive production.
The Rangers had some great highs in this month with the debut of Joey Gallo, winning 3 games against the Dodgers, and getting up as high as 2nd place in the division. They also had some lows and that was losing Deshields and then losing 6 straight and 7 of 8 at the end of the month. It was clear by the mid of June the team was running out of steam. They did get Adrian Beltre and Josh Hamilton back by the end of the month and had survived June. They finished the month with an overall record of 40-38, 5 games back in the division, and 1 game behind the Angels for second place. Overall they went 14-13 for the month, which allowed them to stay in the race through what was a difficult month of June. It was also great to see Joey Gallo finally in a Rangers uniform and he had some great and some not so great moments. Hanser Alberto proved that he could hit on this level and Roughned Odor showed that he was not a flash in the pan either. Odor would be perhaps the Rangers best player from the time he came back up through the month of July. We will continue detailing his remarkable return next week. Chi Chi Gonzalez was great in the rotation as well, but did show some holes. He had issues putting hitters away as he was not able to get swings and misses as often as he needed to. The most important thing was that the Rangers were still in the race after this month. It could have very easily went very south with all the injuries, but Jeff Bannister and the team kept that from happening.
Next week I will come back and detail the month of July and the entire second half. July features the return of Delino Deshields, the return of Martin Perez and Matt Harrison, a 21-5 beatdown, and surprising trades that would completely turn around the fortunes of this team. May was the month that set them on the path to contending, June was about surviving, and July will be about becoming a true contender. That will be next Monday that I will write and continue with part 4 of the 2015 Season in Review.
Today, we pick up our 2015 Season in Review by looking back at the month that changed it all for the Rangers and that is May. Prior to May 1st it looked like this was going to be another … Continue reading →
Tonight was just one of those nights where nothing went right for the Rangers and they lost 9-2. Games like this happen every so often when you play 162. Nick Martinez was not sharp at all and Chris Sale was his usual dominant self. That is a combination that will lead to a loss every time. I had predicted a 5-2 home stand before it started and with a win tomorrow they will finish the home stand 5-2. I kind of expected them to lose this game. The Rangers are very lefty heavy and so they will struggle against dominant left handers like Sale, Clayton Kershaw, and others. Tonight was not that much of a surprise. It became even less of a surprise when Prince Fielder was given the night off and Josh Hamilton was kept out of the lineup due to a hamstring injury. So no Adrian Beltre, Fielder, and Hamilton and all of a sudden it felt more like a Spring Training lineup going up against maybe the best left hander in the AL. The loss drops the Rangers record to 27-26.
Other Game Notes
Joey Gallo followed his monster debut and predictibly struggled against Chris Sale. He went 0-3 against Sale with 3 strikeouts. He did come up against another left-hander in the 9th, Zach Duke and hit his second home run and hit it again into the upper right field porch once again. He will strike out, but I think it was a great learning experience for him.
Prince Fielder who is 4-25 in his career against Chris Sale was given his first night off the season. Not a bad decision. He has been struggling in this home stand so I am sure instead of continuing that slide Banister decided to give him the night off with the thought being that he will be rested and ready for tomorrow.
The bad news that came out after the game tonight was that Josh Hamilton’s minor hamstring tightness is not so minor. After having an MRI it was determined that he will be out 3-4 weeks. It was strained on a play in the outfield on Saturday night where he chased down a ball in the corner. It was made worse on the walk-off hit on Sunday when he was rounding first. The Rangers did not have him before Memorial Day and still were winning games. They will find a way. This could keep Gallo on the team longer than the 3 weeks timeline if Hamilton is not back yet. Gallo has played the outfield so he can fill in the out there so that the Rangers can keep his power in the lineup. I imagine he will be put on the DL tomorrow and I do not know who they will call up. Jake Smolinski is already on the team. They could call up Roughned Odor to put another player on the bench, Michael Choice is on the 40 man roster but has struggled all season, I guess the more likely option is a pitcher to fill out the bullpen. We will see tomorrow. The option is short term Deshields Jr. plays everyday in left and Martin is back in center everyday. Ryan Rua is expected back later this month and will play in the outfield some and Kyle Blanks will be back as well. The Rangers do have options and should be fine. They just will need to survive these next few weeks.
There was good news in the organization. Matt Harrison made his first rehab start for Triple-A Round Rock. He threw 5 innings, throwing 78 pitches, and came out of it “feeling great”. At this point the plan is for him to be back later this month. They will evaluate him after every start. No pitcher has ever come back from Spinal Fusion surgery and so the team doesn’t want to mess this up. Good luck to Matt and I can’t wait to see him back in Arlington.
Tomorrow is the finale of the series and the home stand. It will be Carlos Rodon against Yovanni Gallardo at 7:05. Go Rangers!!!!!
Wow. What more can you say about what happened last night at Globe Life Park. Since I heard Monday afternoon that the Rangers would call up Joey Gallo I was looking forward to the game. I was excited to see what he would do, all the while anticipating that he would probably go 0-4, with 2 strikeouts. He lived up to his hype at least for one night and provided a glimpse at what type of player he could be for this Rangers team in the future. He did everything last night except for field a ball and steal a base. It was one of the best rookie debuts I have seen for a Rangers position player. Probably the best in my mind since Ruben Mateo went 1-4 in his debut with a home run back on June 12, 1999. That is probably how long it has been since they have had a player with as much hype as Joey Gallo is getting. The guy deserves it especially with the kind of numbers he was putting up in the minor leagues. He had put up two straight 40 home run seasons and was probably on his way to around 40 again this season, but they decided to promote him for 2-3 weeks. I am excited to see what Gallo can do for this team in the next few weeks and I hope that when Adrian Beltre is healthy that Gallo has played so well that they have to at least have a conversation about keeping him on the team even though there really is not a spot for him to get consistent at-bats. Man what a night though.
On a night that everyone is going to be talking about Joey Gallo, there were other things that happened. The team did win 15-2. Carlos Corporan had 5 rbi’s on the night after coming in for Robinson Chirinos in the 3rd inning. Colby Lewis pitched 7 great innings, only allowing a 2-run home run to Adam Eaton. Everyone on the team had multiple hits except for Prince Fielder. Fielder has seemingly cooled off after a scorched earth road trip. The team has now started to put some distance between themselves and .500 and 27-25. Unfortunately the Astros came back to win so the Rangers are still 5.5 games back of the Astros. They are only 0.5 game back of the Tigers and Angels for the second wild card spot though. They have now won 11 of their last 13 and are just making baseball look easy. That could change today as they go up against White Sox ace Chris Sale who will try to neutralize these lefty heavy Rangers lineup. Nick Martinez will try to keep the White Sox off the board and help give the offense a chance at winning this game. It is going to be weird especially after how Gallo played last night when manager Jeff Banister decides to sit him against Chris Sale in favor of Adam Rosales. Not saying it is the wrong move, but it is not going to be the popular move with fans who will be coming tonight to see Joey Gallo play. It is smart because he will have a better shot for success tomorrow against Carlos Rodon than against Chris Sale. Game time is tonight at 7:05. Go Rangers!!!!!!!!!!
Today, I will be starting with my series on the future of the Rangers by looking at minor league phenom Joey Gallo. Gallo has been called everything from, “the most interesting man in the minors” to 2014 Futures Game … Continue reading →
The 2014 season is about halfway over and for the Texas Rangers it has turned from a season of promise into a lost season due to all the injuries. In all the Rangers have made 20 DL moves this season, 3/5 of their expected rotation is on the DL, their starting and backup first basemen are gone for the season, and numerous other star players and role players have missed time due to injury. 2014 will always be in my mind “the nightmare season” that as soon as it is over will never be spoken of again. It was the year players started getting hurt in the offseason, it carried over into Spring Training workouts and the games, and extended into the regular season. It has felt like the Rangers have not went more than two weeks without having to make a DL move. It has been a valiant effort by Ron Washington and the team to stay as close to .500 as they have, but as of today they are 11.5 GB of the division, and 4.5 GB of the wild card. They are still in the race right now for one of the wild card spots and so the season isn’t completely over, but I have decided instead of dwelling on the present on this blog I will be focusing the next couple of weeks looking into the future.
In the present it looks bleak, the Rangers have players that are hurt or underperforming, they only have a good chance of winning 1 out of every 5 games, and there really isn’t much in the way of reinforcements coming into the team. Despite all of that though the near future looks bright. They have prospects such as Joey Gallo, Luke Jackson, Chi Chi Gonzalez, Jorge Alfaro, Nomar Manzaro, Ryan Rua, and others that are still developing and on their way up. On the major league club we have seen the promise and potential that Michael Choice, Roughned Odor, Luis Sardinas, Robinson Chirinos, Nick Martinez, and Nick Tepesch have shown. The future looks promising, but these players are not ready yet. They will have their moments, but not sustained and rarely in the late innings. In some ways this feels a lot like 2008 and 2009 in that there were a lot of players who were good, but they did not know how to win yet. They had to spend those two years learning how to win and then in 2010 it all came together. This group of players has to learn how to win together and in order to become winners a team first has to lose. It happens in every sport, it is called the slow build. For the Rangers that is what 2006-2009 was. It was getting the pieces together and then learning how to win. Before the Dallas Cowboys won their last 3 Super Bowls they had to endure seasons of 1-15, 7-9, 11-5, before going 13-3 and winning the Super Bowl. That is where the Rangers are back to right now.
Over the next two weeks leading into the All Star Break I will be writing 5 parts to our future of the Texas Rangers series. The first part will take a look at Joey Gallo. He has been called the most interesting man in the minors by Grantland and so I will be writing part one about him and the expected impact that he will have on this team, when he will arrive, and what type of player he will likely become. The second part will take a look at the top 10 Rangers prospects and their expected arrival time and what kind of impact they will have on this team. The third part will take a look at the moves the Rangers need to make to win in 2015 and beyond. The fourth part will take a look at the young players on the roster right now and what their ceiling is and if they can become long term contributors to the team. The fifth and final part will be prediction for what the 2016 roster will look like. It will be a compilation of the previous four parts and look toward 2016 when many of these players will have made or will make their debuts. Baseball America does something like this in their prospect handbooks every year where they jump ahead 3 years to make their prediction on the starting lineup and rotation. I will do the same to close out this 5 part series.
In conclusion Rangers fans don’t despair. I know that it may be hard to watch this years team and the season cannot get over quick enough, but enjoy it while it is here. Spend the games watching Roughned Odor hit or Nick Martinez pitch and realize that this is the future and while it may not be great now, they will be once they have some more seasoning under their belt. It takes time to grow for young players such as them, but I would expect that as soon as next season they will be back in the hunt for a playoff berth next season and in 2016 I expect to see them back in contention for another World Series berth. Unfortunately 2014 is not 2015 or 2016. The future will be better I guarantee that.
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