After the first four weeks of play, mostly against the American League West, one thing is clear. It’s a one-team division. To paraphrase the movie Money Ball, you have Houston, then ten feet of crap, then everyone else. It used to be twenty feet. Houston isn’t what it was. What […]
First we’ll use Spahn Then we’ll use Sain Then an off day Followed by rain Back will come Spahn Followed by Sain And followed We hope By two days of rain Written by Gerald Hern, sports editor for long defunct Boston Post, during the Boston Braves 1948 pennant drive, […]
The five-game losing streak started with Mike Minor’s dud in Oakland, a 6-1 loss in which he gave up four earned runs in six innings. That was on the heels of his complete game shutout gem. But last night the ace of the staff did what an ace should […]
It’s always difficult when you struggle at the beginning of the season because the numbers are out there in plain sight. If you start off strong, say, hitting .360, then have a stretch where you’re hitting .160, it gets hidden. But when you start out hitting .160, it’s a […]
At the beginning of every game, a manager looks at his team and says to himself, “All I need is 27 outs. Who is going to get them?” Texas’s starter Taylor Hearn got one. That’s a start. That’s something to build on. In all fairness to Hearn, it really […]
Well, Nomar Mazara is heating up. That’s the good news. Actually, that’s not the good news. The good news is the Rangers are leaving Oakland, a town so undesirable, if a tornado ripped through downtown, it would do $200 million in improvements. Since 2017, Texas is 4-18 in Oakland. […]
On paper it seems like it came down to one inning. It really all came down to one at-bat. The entire game pivoted on one lousy at-bat. The operative word being lousy. While the final score reflected the beatdown the Athletics handed the Rangers, that one at-bat could have […]
Last year, the Rangers were 3-7 in Oakland. In 2017, they were 1-8. There’s something about playing in the sewage dump that the Athletics call home that Texas can’t overcome. Actually, in the smallest of sample sizes, there’s something about playing on the road that the Rangers can’t overcome […]
Jose Leclerc’s struggles in the ninth continued yesterday. Should that sound alarms? Is the Rangers magical season in jeopardy? No. The funny thing about closers is they are interchangeable drill bits. When one breaks, you run to the tool box and get another. What happened when Neftali Feliz stopped […]
Two mirror-opposite games. On Friday night, the Astros jumped on the Rangers early and never let up. On Saturday night, the Rangers returned the favor. It all starts with starting pitching. On paper, this was a no-brainer. And this is why baseball is impossible to handicap. Gerrit Cole has […]
