Beat the teams you should beat. 431 comments

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The Rangers beat the Rockies 6-3. But let’s not get too carried away here. Only two teams are coming into the season worse than the Texas Rangers. The Colorado Rockies were one of them. (Arizona the other.)

And, while the Rangers started what appeared to be their opening day regular lineup, the Rockies started a lineup that was bad even by Colorado Rockies standards, with only third-baseman Nolan Arenado making the game.

That said, there were a few positives to take out of yesterday’s victory over a bad team’s minor league team.

First of which is, you always need to beat the teams you should beat. And in Rangers case, that is a short list of two teams.

Martin homered. That is a good, and very rare, thing.

The great battle for leftfield rages with Smolinski hitting .333 with a .400 on base percentage and four RBIs, and Ryan Rua hitting .311 with a .367 on base percentage and eight RBIs. On a normal club that was trying to put out the best team on the field to win, one of these two would win the LF job and the other would be the DH. But the DH job is taken here by Mitch Moreland so he can find his swing. By all accounts, that should happen within the next six seasons.

But the better stories were on the mound. Yeah, our guys were facing some pretty anemic guys at the plate, but there are plenty of times when that happens and our guys get the short end of the bargain.

Last night, Nick Martinez and Ross Ohlendorf seems to shed some light on their futures. Martinez’s as perhaps the third best starter, and Ohlendorf as the long man and fifth starter in waiting.

That Ohlendorf was able to come back from a groin injury and pitch as well as he did is major development for a bullpen that is shaping up to be the strength of the team. And with this rotation, it will be needed early and often.

So, as always, a win is a win. Every positive thing is a confidence builder.

It’s just  too bad the Rangers cannot move to the National League West and play the Rockies and Diamondbacks nineteen times each, though. That would be a true confidence builder.