Yu Darvish drops a nasty slider on Albert Pujols, for his tenth strikeout of the game, the twenty-ninth game in his major league career with ten or more Ks.

Who needs a bullpen?

No, seriously. Who needs a bullpen? The Rangers have one to sell for the low low price of $8.99.

Mike Hauschild became an official card carrying member of the Rangers bullpen yesterday in just his second appearance. He gave up three runs in the ninth inning, giving him a total of four earned runs in three innings, for an ERA of 12.00.

With the Rangers, it’s best to do what they did yesterday. Score so many runs it doesn’t matter. But even then, that’s no guarantee of victory, as we have seen.

You really can’t ignore your bullpen throughout the course of a season, but right now the Rangers offense is dominating. Yesterday against Of Anaheim, they hung up eight more runs and hit two more home runs.

That gives them twenty home runs in nine games. They leads the major leagues in home runs. And in runs-per-game.

And all of this without Adrian Beltre.

Robinson Chirinos is batting .400. Nomar Mazara is hitting .368. Elvis Andrus is hitting .353.

Joey Gallo is hitting just .207, which is so much higher than anyone would have ever predicted, but is second in the team in RBIs with nine. Mazara has eleven.

Andrus, Mazara, Gomez, and Odor have three home runs each.

The offense is clicking.

So who cares about closers?

If the Rangers continue going into the last inning with an eight-run lead, they can win sixty percent of their games.

*****
TODAY’S GAME:

Martin Perez (1-1, 2.38) vs. Felix Hernandez (0-1, 4.09)
Game time: 9:10

How the Rangers hit against Hernandez.
How the Mariners hit against Perez.