May 3, 2017.


The Rangers have had some legendarily bad starters. Matt Moore was one—a pitcher so horrible, Jon Daniels just had to make him a Ranger.


ANOTHER BAD DAY FOR MOORE.

The oldest, and truest, axiom in baseball is that you are only as good as that day’s pitcher.

Yesterday, the Rangers were as good as Matt Moore. Meaning, they were as good as a Yugo made by blind factory workers in the middle of a workers strike where everyone on the assembly line was piss-ass drunk on vodka.

Matt Moore was not good.

It shouldn’t be surprising, though. He was, statistically, the worst pitcher in major league baseball in 2017. Jon Daniels decided to trade for him. Here’s a general manager who is as familiar with recognizing pitching talent as Kanye West is with recognizing reality.

Matt Moore has lived up to his pre-season expectations. He came into the game with a sterling-for-him ERA of 5.33. He left with an ERA of 7.67.

All he did yesterday was give up the most earned runs any pitcher has given up thus far in 2018. Ten. In four innings.

The Indians came into this series last in the American League in hitting. In just three cracks at Rangers pitching, they went from hitting .223 to hitting .236—just .001 behind the Rangers, in fact—moving up from last to thirteenth.

The tragedy is, the Rangers have assembled a pitching staff that is overshadowing in its ineptitude what its young offense is producing in its fiery scrappiness.

You are only as good as today’s starter. That doesn’t bode well for a team whose pitching staff was cobbled together in MacGyver-like fashion, with a rotation ERA of 5.18 and a bullpen ERA of 4.56.

The Rangers have already put Martin Perez on the DL with an “injury.” They are running out of abled bodied starters they can DL.

Matt Moore should be at the top of that list. Unfortunately, he has another start awaiting him in five games. Tigers hitters are already circling that date on their calendars and salivating to get here.