The Rangers need to bottle David Dahl’s approach to the plate and serve it up to every single coach in their system, and to every hitter on the team.

He seems to be a disciple of his former teammate on the Rockies, Charlie Blackmon. Patience. Knowing the strike zone. Making great swing decisions. Making pitchers pitch to you instead of getting yourself out. Make contact.

It’s everything the Rangers haven’t been for years, everything the previous core of underwhelming players lacked. 

Hopefully, Dahl represents the new approach to hitting that failed to be drilled into the heads of Mazara, Odor, DeShields, Guzman, Calhoun—the endless parade of hitless wonders that oozed through the system, producing only one great player in a dozen years in Joey Gallo.

Now the Rangers have Dahl, Solak, and Lowe to form an offensive core around Gallo, who, unfortunately, might be here until his lease runs out in July.

If you squint, you can start seeing a future here. Get a shortstop who can hit, like maybe Trevor Story. There will be many available through free agency after the end of the season. Pray that Josh Jung and Sam Huff pay off. Then, suddenly, you can see a pretty productive lineup. Mabye even, gasp, dangerous.

It’s already starting to turn around. Eight runs in the first game, four runs yesterday. We are finally seeing offense. Real, sustained offense. Offense that is not relying on the home run ball. 

That’s what makes baseball fun. So much more fun than the take-your-three-hacks-and-walk-back-to-the-bench approach we’ve seen for too many years.

Rangers baseball is fun again.

Until Rangers pitchers take the mound. But, hey, one crisis solved at a time.

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