The downtrodden Rangers manager Jeff Banister explains another loss, a situation he is all too familiar with this season.
The four-game series started out so promisingly with a win in the first game highlighted by the Rangers biggest offensive explosion of the season.
Unfortunately, they scored just one run in the next game and in the fourth game, and lost the remaining three to the Boston Red Sox. And the difference between the elite teams in the league and the Rangers became more evident.
The Rangers are sorely deficient in every aspect of their game: offense, rotation, bullpen, defense.
You can’t struggle in so many areas and expect anything more than 1-3 in a series.
When you look at the standings in baseball, and you see how bad some of these teams are doing, you have to wonder about the wisdom of the total strip down and rebuild. Yes, it has worked for the past three World Series winners. But it creates an almost unwatchable brand of baseball getting there.
Right now, six teams are on pace to have 100-loss seasons. Six. That’s twenty-percent of baseball. Is that really good for the game? The difference between the haves and have-nots has never been this significant.
The bottom feeders, and their final records at their current pace:
San Diego Padres 60-102
Texas Rangers 58-104
Kansas City Royals 52-110
Chicago White Sox 45-117
Cincinnati Reds 38-123
Baltimore Orioles 38-123
One team is noticeably absent from this list: the Miami Marlins, who famously held a fire sale in the off-season and sold off the best outfield in baseball. They are on pace for a whopping 63-99 record. Not inspiring, certainly. But also not 100 loses, although it’s splitting hairs.
What’s even more revealing here is all off-season, Rangers general manager Jon Daniels had insisted this won’t be a rebuild, that he was building a team that would compete.
Which means, the 2018 Rangers represent a horrible job of roster construction and not a deliberate attempt at sacrifice.
So he didn’t succeed at failing, he failed at succeeding.
This team wasn’t trying to be horrendous. It is just built that way.
*****
TODAY’S GAME:
Michael Fulmer (1-2 2.80) vs. Matt Moore (1-4, 7.67)
Game time: 7:05
How the Tigers hit against Moore.
How the Rangers hit against Fulmer.