Tagged: Mark Texeira
A New Era Begins
7PM CDT October 15,2010. No matter how many games this lasts, it will be the latest the Rangers have ever played in a calendar year.
Four steps need to be made, each one putting the team closer to what longtime fans once thought unfathomable- the World Series.
Will the 2010 Texas Rangers successfully walk up those steps in 2010? The next 4-7 games will tell.
Funniest thing I heard: Listening the MLB Radio on the XM on the way to work as I always do, I heard a Yankee fan call in to Jim Memelo and Jeff Nelson. His complaint? “Cliff Lee this, Cliff Lee that. Can we please stop talking about Cliff Lee?” Hysterical. Pot, meet kettle. No disrespect intended, but sir, do you realize how much the rest of the nation hears about the Yankees day in, day out? Especially in the off-season? And you can’t take someone talking about someone else for a change for even three days? Please. Wonder if he’d be complaining if Lee had gone to the Yankees instead of Texas back in July.
What 40 years of futility does to one’s mind set: Yesterday I followed two links via Lone Star Ball and read two articles picking the Rangers to beat the Yankees in the ALCS. I didn’t know what to do with this. I’m so used to nobody picking the Rangers, I don’t know how to respond to someone picking for them. I even started thinking it has to be bad news for someone to say the Rangers are favored. This team seems to perform better as underdogs. One regular Rangers blogger was certain we would lose Game 5 against the Rays. That’s how used to failure we are. That’s why success smells so sweet right now.
Sizing Up The ALCS: OK, time for some serious comparisons. Despite home field advantage for Texas, it’s easy to see why the Yankees should be favored. History is definitely on their side. They have a scary offense. They’re sound defensively. Their pitching is pretty good.
I don’t think there’s any doubt the Yankees, around the infield, are the stronger team. Texeira vs. Moreland, no contest. Kinsler-Cano. Edge to Cano because of Kinsler’s 2 DL trips, otherwise a push. Jeter vs. Andrus, edge Jeter. A-Rod vs. Young. Sorry, Michael. You’ve been our rock but A-Rod’s power is the difference there.
On the other hand, the Rangers have the upper hand in the outfield, especially in outfield depth. Hamilton and Cruz certainly top Granderson and Swisher. Plus we have Borbon, Murphy and Francoeur to counter Gardner, Thames and Kearns.
Behind the plate is a wash. Posada and Cervelli are better offensively than Molina and Treanor, but I give the defensive/play calling edge to the Rangers.
DH is easily in the Rangers column with Vlad Guerrero, although he hasn’t been hitting with a lot of power lately. He’s still someone who can change a game in a hurry.
Offensively, then, it’s pretty much even. That brings us to pitching.
To me, this series comes down to how Andy Pettite performs. Pettite missed a big chunk of the season with a groin injury. He’s made four starts since he returned. Pettite pitched well in his first start. Then he got shelled in his second and third appearances before pitching a good game against the Twins in the ALDS. Pettite has given the Rangers fits in the past and he has a sterling post-season record. Still, two good starts and two bad starts since coming off the DL makes him a wild card. Plus, he’s the one who has to contend with Cliff Lee in the ALCS.
To be sure, CJ Wilson and Colby Lewis HAVE to perform well for the Rangers to have a chance. Like Pettite for the Yankees, I’m not 100% sure either pitcher can do it twice in this series. And the Game 4 match-up? I think both Rangers fans and Yankees fans have absolutely no idea who comes out on top in a Hunter-Burnett match-up. From what I can gather, fans on both sides are expecting their guy to LOSE this one!
Bullpens are pretty equal as well. You have to give the Yankees the closer edge with Rivera against the Rangers rookie Feliz, even though Texas has had success against Rivera in the regular season. I think the Rangers have more quality set-up guys than the Yankees, so that puts the bullpens as a wash.
Overall, that spells a pretty even series to me. The keys for the Rangers are Josh Hamilton starting to hit again and the Rangers as a team not letting the Yankees get into their heads. If they stay level-headed and Hambone gets his timing back, they can win this thing and go to the Ultimate Show.
The Prediction: The history of this ballclub says to me (unfortunately) if this is just a 4 or 5 game series, that probably means the Yankees have won. Six or seven games tells me Josh is back on his offensive game and the Rangers will be on top in the end.
In 1996, Texas made the playoffs for the first time in their history. They won the season series from the Yankees, 7-5. They lost to the Yanks in the ALDS in four games.
Despite winning four of their last five against the Yankees (the last three without Josh Hamilton), regular season success does not necessarily mean post-season success.
Time to prove it can!
Jumping On The Cliff
It is a great day to be a Rangers fan!
The crown jewel on the trade front will be wearing a Rangers uniform, at least for the rest of the season. Cliff Lee is a Ranger now.
We had to part with Justin Smoak but we held on to Derek Holland, Alexi Ogando and highly regarded prospects Tanner Scheppers and Martin Perez. Chris Davis will once again be the Rangers first baseman after tonight.
Every indication from scouts has Smoak becoming a Mark Texeira type of player in the future, but this year, Smoak vs. Davis may be a wash- Smoak with the better on base percentage but Davis easily the better defender.
The bad news is this could be a three month rental as Lee will be a free agent at the end of the season. The good news is, as a Type A free agent, if he does sign elsewhere, the Rangers will get two additional first round draft picks. Plus, we took him away from the Yankees, who just this morning looked like a lock to pry Lee away from the Mariners.
All I know is today the Rangers front office truly lived up to their 2010 slogan, “It’s Time.” This proves they’re not just talking the talk.
The Shlabotnik Non-Stars: George Wright, OF
In honor of good ol’ Charlie Brown, the Texas Rangers team full of high hopes and low results, but loved by the die-hard fan anyway!
Some of the positions on the Rangers Non-Stars team were hard to fill because, believe it or not, the Rangers/Senators have had a history of exceptional players at those positions. Specifically, a lot of years in team history were filled with Pudge Rodriguez and Jim Sundberg behind the plate. Buddy Bell, Bill Madlock and Dean Palmer spent quite a few years on the hot corner. And recent Rangers history has seen quite a bit of quality at first base with Rafael Palmeiro, Will Clark and Mark Texeira.
When you get to the outfield, it becomes a lot easier to pick among the Non-Stars. For every Juan Gonzalez there were dozens of Oddibe McDowells. We once had Ruben Sierra but countered with more Pete Incaviglias and yes, even Tom Grieves, to mention.
So it is with pride that we hand out the first outfield slot on the Non-Stars team to George Wright.
Huh?
Exactly. Diehard fan as I’ve been for 40 years, George Wright barely made a blip on my radar when I think of all the years I’ve rooted for the Rangers. Yet Wright not only played for the Rangers, he was a starter for two years and one of the main guys off the bench for three more. Still, if I were to come face to face with him tomorrow, I probably wouldn’t know who he was.
George Wright was drafted out of high school by the Rangers in the 4th round of the 1977 draft. Hailing from Oklahome City, Wright wound his way through the minors from ’77 to ’81. Following his 1981 campaign at AA Tulsa, where he hit .260 with 11 HR, 58 RBI and 22 steals, the Rangers felt he was ready for the big time.
Wright mostly manned center field in his rookie year, when he played in 150 games and came to bat 599 times, mostly as the lead-off man in the Rangers order. So he must have walked a lot, right? Nope, only 30 walks. Stolen bases? Guess again. He was caught stealing on 7 of 10 attempts. Scored a lot of runs? Wrong again. He only had 69 for the year. And he batted a merely mortal .264 with a .305 On-Base Percentage. No wonder the Rangers were a dismal 64-98 under managers Don Zimmer and Darrel Johnson.
As if to prove 1982 wasn’t a fluke (!), Wright played in all 162 games for the Rangers in 1983, all but two as the starting center fielder. New manager Doug Rader decided maybe lead-off wasn’t the best place in the batting order for George, so he rotated between 3rd and 8th in the order throughout the year. Actually, Wright’s sophomore year wasn’t half-bad for the Rangers. He improved his average to .276, with 18 HR and 80 RBI and was feared enough to have even garnered nine intentional walks. In fact, Wright finished 24th in the AL MVP voting.
In 1984, Wright had a hard time living up to the new expectations from his earlier success. He got off to a horrible start in ’84, bottoming out at a low .185 average by the end of May. In mid-June he was sent back down to Oklahoma City for a month to find his stroke again. When he returned to the club in July, the Rangers saw a vastly better hitter. Wright brought his average up from .203 on June 9th to an end of season .243, while dividing his time equally between center field and right field.
1985 was a mirror image of 1984, except it was even worse. This time, Wright was hitting a feeble .175 at the end of May when he was once again returned to Oklahoma City for some seasoning. This time, he was gone for a quarter of the season and was still only hitting .254 in the minors when the Rangers called him back up. This time, Wright didn’t really recover, ending the season with a paltry .190 average. The power he had shown just two seasons earlier had also vanished. Now he hit only two home runs for the Rangers compared to the 18 of 1983.
You would think by now the Rangers would have someone new in their sights for the outfield (true), but Wright still managed to stick with the Rangers one more year. Now he was strictly a utility player. While he managed to appear in 105 games, over a third of those appearances were just as a pinch hitter and he started only 45 times in the outfield, replaced as a fulltime starter by the incomparable Oddibe McDowell (at least everybody hoped he’d be incomparable at the time). In his final full year, Wright hit .202 for the Rangers.
Still managing to hold a big league job, Wright once again stuck with the Rangers to start the ’86 season, but only played in 49 games for Bobby Valentine before being shipped mid-season to the Montreal Expos, where he played the final 56 games of his major league career. After being without a job in 1988, Wright bopped around in the minors from 1989-1991 in the Giants, White Sox and Royals farm systems before calling it a career.
Wright’s career line in five seasons with Texas: .248 BA, 42 HR, 203 RBI
CJ vs. CC: Rangers-Yankees Game 1
When I first beame a Rangers/Senators fan, the Yankees were in the same boat as the Senators. Hard to believe it, but back then the Yankees sucked. I think Ralph Houk was the manager back then.
That was then, this is now and the Yankees are now the “Evil Empire”. If there’s ever a good time to face the Yankees, early in the season is it. Mark Texeira is a notoriously slow starter so now’s as good a time as any to face him.
I think the Rangers can run on the Yankees. I’ve only caught a few snippets of Yankees games here and there, but it sounds like Jorge Posada is at the age where he’s not the same catcher he used to be. As long as we can get on base, we can try to exploit that vulnerability.
Don’t like what we’ve done much against southpaws so far and we’ve got one of the best tonight in CC Sabathia, countering with another lefty, CJ Wilson. Hopefully CJ’s stamina is good tonight after suffering through food poisoning in Cleveland. Sabathia is like Texeira. I’d rather face him earlier in the year than later. He’s off to a better start this year than 2009, but I still think he’s more vulnerable in April.
Big series for a team with big dreams. Time to start realizing them tonight.
One Strike Away...Twice! 