One week away. 426 comments


One more week. Four practice games left in Arizona. Two in Arlington. Then a day off.

Then the race begins.

At least spring training has been fun this year.

The Rangers bats came out like bats out of hell to begin the spring—but bats are usually ahead of arms at that point. When the arms caught up the Rangers bats cooled off.

The encouraging thing is, the bats have caught fire again.

Again, it’s not against real pitchers pitching in real game situations but it’s better than the opposite, when doubt starts creeping into minds. No matter how often a player says, “It’s spring, it does’ t matter, when the bell rings, I’ll be ready,” if they have a tough spring, it weighs on them.

Then they don’t get a many hits the first week and it becomes a thing.

The Rangers cannot afford to stumble and fall out of the gate like they did last year. It’s doubtful the Astros will let them back in. But bigger than that, you want the fanbase to let you back in.

This market will embrace baseball if it wins. But it has to show it soon because we have no collective patience.

So, let’s get these last six out of the way without any injuries or worries. Let’s get the fringes of the roster set so we know who will be on the bench. And let’s keep this offense going past Monday.

More important, let’s see something worthwhile to write about.