The Texas Rangers had a couple of days there where they were not playing their best baseball. From the blowout in Chicago to the first game against the Brewers, the Rangers offense looked very bad and the pitching was a little suspect. The good news for all of Rangers Nation is that pitching stopped being suspect after the first inning of Tuesday’s game against the Brewers. And really, for everyone that watched that game, the defense was really the bad part of that inning. The Rangers gave the Brewers six outs in the first inning of Tuesday nights game, and any team will be able to capitalize when your defense plays that badly behind you.
But last nights game against the Brewers was much different. Derek Holland pitched a gem, and the defense behind him was (mostly) better. There was still a couple of errors, even if some of them were not recorded as errors. David Murphy is having some kind of bad start to the season. As many of you know, I am a big fan of Murph and he is one of the classiest guys on the field, but if he continues performing at the level he has been in the first six weeks of the season, he is going to become a bench player playing behind Jeff Baker and Leonys Martin. I hope he comes around very soon, because I would hate to see that happen.
The offense did what it had to win the game, the pen was good and Nathan got out of a jam in the ninth without giving up any runs for yet another save. So, basically, the Rangers looked back to normal for the most part last night. The Rangers get the day off today in the great state of Texas before squaring off against the division rival Houston Astros, who are one game away from sweeping a series from the lowly Angels. The Rangers should be able to take the weekend series against the Astros, and I think they will. The Astros are very bad, but even very bad teams (case in point, the Cubs) can beat you on any given night. The Rangers need to remember to play to their level of talent, and not the level of talent of their opponent, which they seem to do sometimes. So enjoy a baseball-less day (if that is possible) and let’s get ready for the series with Houston! (look for my series preview here).
