Adrian Beltre slugs his 466th career home run, a solo shit in the fourth inning.

During yesterday’s game, after a particulary good at-bat in which Robinson Chirinos battled for a walk with bases loaded to score the Rangers first of what would eventually be six second-inning runs, the Rangers announcers were praising this team on their new patient approach at the plate. This progress is paying off.

And while a seven-game winning streak is terrific, you look up and this club is still ten games under .500.

Put all that together and a few questions surface.

Again, it’s wonderful the team is working on a new approach, but why now? Isn’t that what spring training was for? Why didn’t they work on it then so they were ready when the bell rang? Why wait until they are nearly three months into a season to work on it?

Have they been working on it all this time and they are just now getting it?

These are basically the same hitters from last year, with the same hitting coach. How long has he been preaching this so called new approach they are just now getting? Did he start last season and these players are such slow learners it took them a year and a half to figure it out?

It’s wonderful this team is committed to being more patient, drawing more walks. But was that an epiphany someone recently had where they woke up and said, “Hey, we should instruct these guy to try to get on base more.”? Hasn’t that been the objective all along?

Why did it take so long?

And why is it that in three of the four seasons in which Jeff Banister has been the manager of the Texas Rangers, his teams have gotten off to dreadful starts?

They started 2015 going 7-14 in April. They had an 11-14 April in 2017 and in April of 2018 as well. It could just be a coincidence. But is it a fair question to ask why his teams start so sluggishly? Why they constantly dig themselves into deep holes they have to scratch and claw to get out of?

The Rangers have won seven in a row. That’s amazing. Wonderful. Remarkable. Awesome.

It’s also about time.

*****
TODAY’S GAME:

Bartolo Colon (4-4, 4.91) vs. Jose Berrios (7-5, 3.38)
Game time: 1:10

How the Rangers hit against Berrios.
How tThe Twins hit against Colon.