I am not ready to say that the Rangers are officially out of their cold streak yet, but they took a big step toward it over the past four days. Winning the series against the division leading Oakland Athletics was a big step in the right direction. And, if you watched or listened to yesterday’s game, You know that the return of Ian Kinsler seems to have a good effect on this baseball club. The game almost took on a playoff feel with the way the managers were matching up and the way that the crowd was getting into it.
Overall this is one of the worst home stands that I can remember in a long time, even though it ended well. During the eleven game home stand the Rangers left 75 runners on base, and their slugging percentage for June is just .373. Elvis is really struggling, and so is the starting pitching. The team ERA is now 3.77, which isn’t awful, but it was way better in April and May. The pen is doing good still, allowing an average of 4.08 runs per game. Yu Darvish had a bad game in his last outing, that is something that is going to happen from time to time.
The Rangers, despite all of the bad stats and lack luster offense we saw during the home stand, are still only one game out of first place thanks to getting it together and beating the right team at the right time. Moreland and Soria will be back soon (actually, it will be the first time Soria will pitch for the Rangers, but you know what I mean), and it will be nice to have those guys join the club. I am still not sure what the Rangers are going to do come trade time, but Daniels usually likes to keep that close to the vest. It should be an interesting few weeks leading up to the all-star break! Enjoy baseball again my friends!
