It Got Worse

Remember a little over a week ago when I wrote that Texas had a chance to have a great road trip against the three teams with the worst record in baseball? They didn’t. Lost the series to the Astros, needed a collapse by the Colorado catcher to avoid that series loss, and were swept by the lowly Angels. It was a truly pathetic week.

So I thought they had reached a new low. They would come home and turn things around. Nope. They were no-hit by the team with the worst ERA in the major leagues - the hated Houston Astros.

To use an old line, the Rangers could take batting practice in a hotel lobby and not break anything. I don’t remember ever seeing a team hit so many pop-ups. If you got credit for vertical instead of horizontal they would be leading the league. On occasion when they do hit the ball hard it seems to go straight down or at a fielder who starts a double play.

Lately, if a runner gets on base they might as well take a lawn chair, because they’re probably not going anywhere else.

To be fair, I probably need to mention that the batting order is nowhere near what the team expected. The opening day Second and Third Basemen, the Shortstop, and Left Fielder are all missing due to injuries. Take out 50% of any team’s lineup and it’s drastic. So what about the others? The catchers are not providing any offense. Evan Carter sometimes hits right handed pitching, but NEVER hits lefties. Jake Burger provides some power, but he also struck out three times with the bases loaded in two previous games. Only Brandon Nimmo is approaching his expected results. At this point, the usual suspects look more like a AAA lineup. Not ready for prime time.

I know you can say that 2/3 of the season is left, but you can also say that 1/3 of the season is gone and the Rangers have not given us many reasons to predict that they are about to begin an offensive resurgence. I hope I’m wrong.

By the way, Happy Birthday to Chris Young. Hope he had some candles on his cake, because there sure weren’t any fireworks at Globe Life Field (or as Evan Grant called it No Life Field).

That’s one man’s opinion - what’s yours?