If the Rangers under Tony Beasley seem more fun to watch, it might be because they are.
And it’s not that they’re 7-6 under his watch. It’s that they’re scoring runs. Lot of runs. Eight in yesterday’s loss. Seven on Friday. Sixteen the day before that. Six. Seven. Ten.
There seems to be an offensive resurgence. And it might be pinpointed to one thing.
Consistency.
Chris Woodward seemed to pick the lineup out of a hat. No consistency, no rhyme or reason. No results. It had to be confusing and frustrating for the playes.
Beasley is going with a more set lineup. Hitters seem to respond well to that. Who wouldn’t? It just makes sense that you’d do better at work if you knew what your job was. You can get into a mindset and stay there. And, if you have a bad day one day, you know you will have a chance to make up for it the next.
Semien, Seager, Lowe, Garcia, Heim (or Calhoun if Heim is getting a rest), Taveras.
The first six are pretty much written in stone.
And they are responding.
Semien is hitting .320 over the last week, with a .930 OPS.
Seager: .381, 1.262.
Lowe: .385, .923.
Garcia: .320, .970.
Taveras: .304, .681.
The only hitter who hasn’t responded well is Jonah Heim but he has the rest of his team to pick him up.
Tony Beasley seems to be a guy who understands the baseball doesn’t get batter when it’s driven by analytics, the analytics get better when they are driven by baseball.
The offense was supposed to be this good coming into the season. And the rotation was supposed to be this bad.
No amount of baseball acumen can overcome the miserable rotation. But it seems some old-school baseball is bringing out the offense that was dormant under the over-matched Woodward.
Consistency is a good thing.
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