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Twitter was a blaze on the night of August first with hate and vile for one Tanner Scheppers, who failed to hold a 7-4 lead when he came in in the eighth inning of the very first game starter by newly acquired pitcher Cole Hamels. The hashtag “taketanner” was flying all over twitter in the DFW area, a hashtag that was used several years ago when Tanner Scheppers was on the final vote for the All-Star game as a reliever.
Tanner Scheppers had a very bad night, and now the Rangers have announced that he has been put on the 15 day DL for left knee 
inflammation. The general consensis was that Scheppers has been terrible all season, but the truth is that he has not actually been terrible all season and all we remember in our “what have you done for me lately” society is what happened in the last 24 hours or so.
The 28-year-old was a fantastic reliever in 2014, posting an ERA of 1.88 in 76 games. The Texas Rangers then tried to make a starter out of Scheppers the next season, and that did not go so well for the young man. He had an ERA of 9.00 before going on the DL. This season, we all hoped that the Tanner Scheppers of 2013 would return and give us a much needed boost in the bull pen, but that has not exactly happened. The man that was once referred to as the next Texas Rangers closer struggled.
In the first half of the 2015 season, Scheppers only gave up an opponents batting average of .202, and a slugging percentage of .349, and while that is not great, it is much better than he has been since the All-Star break, where he has an opponents batting average of .429 with a staggering slugging percentage of .750. In May, when he looked his best all season, he had an ERA of 2.25. Not so much since then, as he sported an ERA of 6.97 in July and in August Baseball Reference says inf, which means infinite.
In his Rangers career he has an ERA of 4.15 (including his season of a 9.00 when he tried to be a starter), and his WAR (wins above replacement) is 0.9, which isn’t fantastic but it is in the positive.
Look, if the Texas Rangers release him or send him down, I won’t think it is a travesty, in fact when he gets off the DL I think they should send him down, but I can remember guys that struggled and then the Texas Rangers cut ties with them and they wound up being fantastic with other teams. All I am saying is baseball is a long season, so you shouldn’t let one sixth of the season where a guy was injured determine you total opinion on a player. If I did that I would be calling for his head right now. Of course, I would have also called for Cliff Lee to be cut after one game and for Yu Darvish to be cut after one game as well. Let’s not crucify a guy for a bad month. Baseball is all about patience, let’s have just a little as fans.
