In two weeks, the season starts. The silliness of spring training ends, the folly of using closers in the third inning ends, the sleep-inducing practice of giving three at-bats per game to Triple-A players ends.
Baseball begins.
The Rangers have two weeks to find two starters to round out their two aces in Hamels and Davish, and their he’s-healthy-so-he’ll-do Perez.
Quietly, the Rangers might have found at least one starter in the massive scrap heap of mediocrity they call their roster.
It just might be a guy who specializes in junk. A slight of hand trickster. A pitcher who single-handedly kills all gains the commissioner’s office has been trying to make in pace of game. A knuckleballer.
Eddie Gamboa has logged a total of 13.1 major league innings. He has walked eight batters in those 13.1 innings. He has zero major league wins on his resumé. He might be the third best starter the Rangers have. Which will tell you how depleted of pitching talent the Rangers system is.
Yesterday Gamboa floated up the ball for five innings, striking out six, allowing no earned runs. His spring ERA is 2.08.
My bet is he makes the roster as the number four starter. He may not be great, but he doesn’t have to be.
The bar is low.