Guaranteed Sweep Weekend is over. It was like Players Weekend where every player played under a whacky nicknames for an entire series. Only with Guaranteed Sweep Weekend, every Ranger impersonated a Hall of Famer for the weekend.

And they didn’t have to wear those ugly all-white uniforms.

The Rangers swept the Orioles in four in Baltimore for the first time since the beginning of time. Since 1972, the Rangers inaugural season. Since the Rangers were as bad as the Orioles and the Orioles were perennial East Division champs.

It was glorious. It was wonderful. It was dominating. It was Baltimore. 

But take it while you can. Twenty hits, ten runs. Everyone up and down the lineup got at least one hit. Choo, Solak, Guzman, and Trevino got three each. Deshields, Odor, and Calhoun got two each. Odor is poking his head above the rarified air of Mendoza for the time being. Minor pitched eight.

It was like one last spring training tune up before the bell rings for real.

It was like drunken sailors on shore leave before pushing off for combat. One last blowout before it gets serious. 

The old saying “sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug” comes to mind now. Against under .500 teams, the Rangers are the windshield.

Against over .500 teams, they are the bug. Now it’s bug time. 

They go into the final seventeen against teams fighting for something important. Tampa Bay and Oakland (nine games total) are desperately duking it out for a wild card slot, and realizing with each passing day the calendar is running out on them. Houston and New York (five games) are out for best record in the A.L. and, subsequently, home field advantage, and, more important, playing the wild card team. Both are going to treat Texas unkindly. They play Boston for three, who has more to lose than all of the other teams combined. They are trying not to lose face. After winning the World Series last year, they’ve never gotten going. But they’ve also never gone away. 

Guaranteed Sweep Weekend is over. Now it’s Survival September.

Bug, meet windshield.

*****

NO GAME TODAY