Baseball is much harder when you have to face major league hitters and major league pitchers. The Rangers are being reminded of that in Canada.
Texas went into the All-Star break having won seven out of nine, including a season-best five-game winning streak. Suddenly, their hopes were up, as there was actual talk of winning their division. Visions of playoffs danced in their heads.
Then the second half started. The Rangers lost two of three to Baltimore, and have lost the first two to Toronto. In between, they had a four-game breather against the Single-A Chicago White Sox, a team that has now lost thirteen games in a row, a team that loses to everyone, like the Washington Generals of baseball.
Because of their four-game break from major league opponents, the second half featured the Rangers second five-game winning streak. But, when they resumed their major league schedule, they showed what they are really made of: not enough.
Michael Lorenzen put the Rangers in an early hole, like he did against Baltimore in his first start of the second half, and the Rangers couldn’t recover. This is still a Rangers team that is struggling to score runs. Even the White Sox the Rangers didn’t score in three of the four games. They were just fortunate they played the team that has scored the fewest runs this season by far.
The Blue Jays aren’t the White Sox. They have a lineup of major league hitters (Toronto registered fifteen hits yesterday to Texas’s four) and a staff of major league pitchers (Toronto surrendered three earned runs to Texas’s seven) and the Rangers proved why they are under .500 and cannot get over the hump.
For all the talk about playoffs, for all the hope of re-loading by Tuesday’s trade deadline, the Rangers need to get to .500 first. That will prove challenging because they don’t have any more games against the White Sox this season.
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