People have been talking to me about the Rangers. No surprise, seeing that I really enjoy talking about them. One thing that always makes me shake my head is baseball over reactors. The Rangers are were 2-1 after the first series. All of a sudden some think that means they are good. The Rangers have the second worst ERA in all of baseball, the worst in the American League, sitting at 7.50. Their ERA was over nine until the game Monday night. Only one of the Rangers starters (Drew Smyly) has an ERA below nine. He only lasted 3 innings on Monday night. I know it is a very small sample size, but I already see problems I thought they would have.
The Texas Rangers starting rotation is built with guys recovering from Tommy John Surgery. They are not going to come out sharp, as they have not. They will either improve as the season progresses or they will get injured and probably not pitch again at a high level. While I am hoping for the former, the odds are that at least two of the starters right now will not be starting by the All-Star Break. The 2019 Rangers are the Rangers of old. They can hit the mess out of a baseball. They cannot win games without hitting the mess out of the baseball. The team had to come back several times in two of the three games they won. One included a walk-off wild pitch. They have scored 24 runs in four games. Twenty-four runs is good enough to be tied for third in runs scored in the American League, and all the teams above them have played more games.
The Texas Rangers are a dangerous offense. They have a pretty good defense. But pitching wins championships, as they say. The Rangers do not have what it takes to win with pitching. Plain and simple. I would love for them to surprise me and have some more games like Monday’s 2-1 loss, but I just don’t see it happening very often. It will be a really fun season as long as you look at it through baseball lenses and not football lenses. In football terms, the Rangers have played one quarter of one football game. Not time to get really excited about a 2-2 start yet.
Am I right? Am I way off? Let me know in the comment section down below or on Facebook or Twitter.
