You have to feel for Rangers manager Chris Woodward. After all, there are only so many ways to say “we stink.”
So far, he has had to have 79 post-game press conferences where he has had to say that. There’s always the, well, we lost but we had some fight in us, like yesterday. Or the, we showed some positives out there. Or the common, just thirteen more runs and we would have had them.
It’s got to be tough coming up with different excuses for his team. Almost as tough as watching them play.
Here were some from yesterday.
Trying to explain the costly base running mistake from Yonny Hernandez, where he got picked off third with one out in the bottom of the tenth.
“It’s a tough game and you’re gonna make mistakes,” Woodward reasoned. “It won’t be the last time he makes a mistake. Unfortunately, it’s the biggest mistake he’s ever made on the big-league field. It’s not the last. We’ve all made mistakes. But at that point in that situation, it can’t really happen. It probably won’t again, but he’s got to learn from it.”
Sixty-two words to say, “boneheaded rookie mistake.” He used that one up the first week of the season. He’s had to improvise ever since.
On the near comeback that failed, Woodward said, “It was a roller coaster of emotions all game. It was one of the club’s worst games of the season until the ninth inning. But games like this are part of the growing pains of a young team.”
Thirty-nine words to say, “We keep losing.” The guy isn’t, after all, a broken record. Even as his team in breaking the all-time franchise loss record.
Commenting on another bad outing from Spencer Howard, his third Rangers start since being traded to the Rangers for Kyle Gibson and Ian Kennedy, in which he lasted two innings, giving up five earned runs, Woodward said, “Howard was okay mechanically but vastly inconsistent when facing Seattle this time around. He’s a competitor,” he added. “We just have to improve on it, and you know hopefully he’ll be better next time.”
Thirty-two words to say, “We have no pitching.” It’s a common refrain.
On Adolis Garcia’s monumental second-half slump, which he broke out of yesterday with a 2-for-4 and a home run, Woodward pointed out, “The one thing is with two strikes, he tends to chase quite a bit. He’s got to learn to be patient but also be aggressive. If he’s disciplined, you see the talent. The ball jumps off his bat. He’s got power to all fields. He’s just got to stay disciplined in his approach. It’s a work in progress, but he’s on board. He’s trying to make adjustments and he’s doing different things. Today was a positive sign.”
Seventy-seven words to say, “Our hitters need plate discipline.”
This should be tattooed on his forehead.
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TODAY’S GAME:
