Series Thread: Rangers Close Out Season in Seattle With Four Games September 28 - October 1

[scotsman1948]

Next year!

I agree next year or this coming offseason.

 

[DT LUNA]

I agree next year or this coming offseason.

Hope to see lowe Traveras and J Smith gone along with Chapman and Smith.

 

[scotsman1948]

Hope to see lowe Traveras and J Smith gone along with Chapman and Smith.

The last 2 are free agents and will be gone at season’s end. Taveras and J Smith will be traded. Until there is a viable replacement for Lowe he will be kept

 

[Duane1952]

Hope to see lowe Traveras and J Smith gone along with Chapman and Smith.

Sorbz and Grossman also. I wouldn’t mind if they didn’t bring back Garver either.

 

[DT LUNA]

The last 2 are free agents and will be gone at season’s end. Taveras and J Smith will be traded. Until there is a viable replacement for Lowe he will be kept

Lowe can easily be replaced.

 

[WilltheThrill]

And the Astros celebrated like they had totally dominated the division all season

Our celebration on Saturday night was a bit premature and over-the-top, if you ask me. It said “we’re happy just to make the playoffs at all”. And I get that, given their nosedive in September, they likely were happy just to be in. It ended a 7 year drought. So sure, celebrate a little.

But the goal at that point should have been winning the division. It’s like when you see a team eliminate another one in the Stanley Cup or NFL Playoffs. There isn’t an over-the-top champagne celebration. Instead, what you hear and see from the team is “we’ll enjoy this win a little tonight, but we have bigger goals in mind we still need to focus on”. I wanted a statement game. The Astros made a statement with their game today (granted, against a lot of reserves). I wanted to see the Rangers come out, give the M’s a huge beating, and proclaim “this division is ours”. Nope. Nothing like that.

I know I’m not in the clubhouse, and I know they did care about winning today. But the optics were just bad. It was like they had already achieved their goal and today was just playing with house money. The entire lineup minus Carter was just going through the motions out there. Weak ground outs, give-up at-bats, and infield pop-ups.

I just can’t fathom playing 161 games, going through what those guys go through with travel, practice, injuries, rehab, etc., and then no-showing in Game 162 when you have the chance to reward yourselves and your fans for all of that hard work. It just seems to me that if they would have played as if their season truly depended on it, they could have scratched and clawed out 1 lousy run against Kirby and bullpen spare parts. The M’s didn’t even put up a fight. They even did us a solid and pulled Kirby at 70 pitches. They put a spare in to get the save as opposed to their regular closer. They did next-to-nothing on offense. They tried to serve us up the division title on a silver platter. Our lineup didn’t take advantage.

I’m not writing off their chances in the playoffs. Everything I’ve seen over the last 5 weeks tells me they will get swept. Logic and data both say they’ll get bounced fairly quickly. But it’s baseball, and baseball often makes zero sense. So I’ll go in with low expectations and hope to be surprised. But there does seem to be something definitely wrong within the clubhouse… whether it’s a disconnect/dislike of Bochy, a fractured locker room, a lack of leadership, a lack of a winning mentality, a lack of dedication/focus, problem with the hitting/pitching coach, a feeling of why bother due to the bullpen… I don’t know. I haven’t heard any of those things mentioned specifically, just spitballing. But they don’t seem like a team ready to put their collective foot down on anyone’s throat.

 

[DT LUNA]

Our celebration on Saturday night was a bit premature and over-the-top, if you ask me. It said “we’re happy just to make the playoffs at all”. And I get that, given their nosedive in September, they likely were happy just to be in. It ended a 7 year drought. So sure, celebrate a little.

But the goal at that point should have been winning the division. It’s like when you see a team eliminate another one in the Stanley Cup or NFL Playoffs. There isn’t an over-the-top champagne celebration. Instead, what you hear and see from the team is “we’ll enjoy this win a little tonight, but we have bigger goals in mind we still need to focus on”. I wanted a statement game. The Astros made a statement with their game today (granted, against a lot of reserves). I wanted to see the Rangers come out, give the M’s a huge beating, and proclaim “this division is ours”. Nope. Nothing like that.

I know I’m not in the clubhouse, and I know they did care about winning today. But the optics were just bad. It was like they had already achieved their goal and today was just playing with house money. The entire lineup minus Carter was just going through the motions out there. Weak ground outs, give-up at-bats, and infield pop-ups.

I just can’t fathom playing 161 games, going through what those guys go through with travel, practice, injuries, rehab, etc., and then no-showing in Game 162 when you have the chance to reward yourselves and your fans for all of that hard work. It just seems to me that if they would have played as if their season truly depended on it, they could have scratched and clawed out 1 lousy run against Kirby and bullpen spare parts. The M’s didn’t even put up a fight. They even did us a solid and pulled Kirby at 70 pitches. They put a spare in to get the save as opposed to their regular closer. They did next-to-nothing on offense. They tried to serve us up the division title on a silver platter. Our lineup didn’t take advantage.

I’m not writing off their chances in the playoffs. Everything I’ve seen over the last 5 weeks tells me they will get swept. Logic and data both say they’ll get bounced fairly quickly. But it’s baseball, and baseball often makes zero sense. So I’ll go in with low expectations and hope to be surprised. But there does seem to be something definitely wrong within the clubhouse… whether it’s a disconnect/dislike of Bochy, a fractured locker room, a lack of leadership, a lack of a winning mentality, a lack of dedication/focus, problem with the hitting/pitching coach, a feeling of why bother due to the bullpen… I don’t know. I haven’t heard any of those things mentioned specifically, just spitballing. But they don’t seem like a team ready to put their collective foot down on anyone’s throat.

We were fortunate to play for the division. With the season loss of deGrom and Scherzer, then Gray suffered injuries on two occasions. Then Eovaldi was out for a long period. Perez lost his sharpness and went to the pen as well as Heaney. Dunning came out of the bull pen to become a starter and did well but that hurt the already weak pen. Montgomery and Dunning was basicly our only pitching strength. It seems almost impossible to think we won 90 games.

In addition the serious injuries to Heim,Jung Seager and Garcia added to the misery.
Lastly came the horrible BP. Add all of these things together and it is a miracle to be in the play offs. In summary, to much to overcome. I believe the guys mentally did not believe they could over come the odds and mentally and phyically ran out of hope and gas. I may be wrong. Just my thoughts.

 

[saddles]

New thread is up

 

[fanman8825]

We were fortunate to play for the division. With the season loss of deGrom and Scherzer, then Gray suffered injuries on two occasions. Then Eovaldi was out for a long period. Perez lost his sharpness and went to the pen as well as Heaney. Dunning came out of the bull pen to become a starter and did well but that hurt the already weak pen. Montgomery and Dunning was basicly our only pitching strength. It seems almost impossible to think we won 90 games.

In addition the serious injuries to Heim,Jung Seager and Garcia added to the misery.
Lastly came the horrible BP. Add all of these things together and it is a miracle to be in the play offs. In summary, to much to overcome. I believe the guys mentally did not believe they could over come the odds and mentally and phyically ran out of hope and gas. I may be wrong. Just my thoughts.

You pretty much summed it up. Just a lame effort yesterday. I don’t expect much against the Rays. Do think some of theses guys are gassed out. Lowe comes to mind as he fades badly down the stretch. Chapman comes apart too easy. Did not want him and have to give up a young talented Ragan’s. Chapman is close to being washed up.

 

[Kelleyman]

Your final AL West standings:

Seattle 89-73
Houston 89-73
Texas 89-73

And Toronto will finish 90-72.

Gonna be a tough winter. We were never going to do anything in the playoffs anyway with the worst bullpen in baseball, but man what an epic collapse for this franchise.

Again.

Was a mistake to write them off. Oops

 

[Kelleyman]

This narcoleptic offense is going to have to be fixed before we can hope to advance very far into the postseason. Figuring out who the main culprits are might not be that hard. Figuring out how to replace them might prove to be a very daunting task. Hopefully, they can figure out a way to solve the problem in the offseason.

So what fixed them?

 

[Kelleyman]

Our celebration on Saturday night was a bit premature and over-the-top, if you ask me. It said “we’re happy just to make the playoffs at all”. And I get that, given their nosedive in September, they likely were happy just to be in. It ended a 7 year drought. So sure, celebrate a little.

But the goal at that point should have been winning the division. It’s like when you see a team eliminate another one in the Stanley Cup or NFL Playoffs. There isn’t an over-the-top champagne celebration. Instead, what you hear and see from the team is “we’ll enjoy this win a little tonight, but we have bigger goals in mind we still need to focus on”. I wanted a statement game. The Astros made a statement with their game today (granted, against a lot of reserves). I wanted to see the Rangers come out, give the M’s a huge beating, and proclaim “this division is ours”. Nope. Nothing like that.

I know I’m not in the clubhouse, and I know they did care about winning today. But the optics were just bad. It was like they had already achieved their goal and today was just playing with house money. The entire lineup minus Carter was just going through the motions out there. Weak ground outs, give-up at-bats, and infield pop-ups.

I just can’t fathom playing 161 games, going through what those guys go through with travel, practice, injuries, rehab, etc., and then no-showing in Game 162 when you have the chance to reward yourselves and your fans for all of that hard work. It just seems to me that if they would have played as if their season truly depended on it, they could have scratched and clawed out 1 lousy run against Kirby and bullpen spare parts. The M’s didn’t even put up a fight. They even did us a solid and pulled Kirby at 70 pitches. They put a spare in to get the save as opposed to their regular closer. They did next-to-nothing on offense. They tried to serve us up the division title on a silver platter. Our lineup didn’t take advantage.

I’m not writing off their chances in the playoffs. Everything I’ve seen over the last 5 weeks tells me they will get swept. Logic and data both say they’ll get bounced fairly quickly. But it’s baseball, and baseball often makes zero sense. So I’ll go in with low expectations and hope to be surprised. But there does seem to be something definitely wrong within the clubhouse… whether it’s a disconnect/dislike of Bochy, a fractured locker room, a lack of leadership, a lack of a winning mentality, a lack of dedication/focus, problem with the hitting/pitching coach, a feeling of why bother due to the bullpen… I don’t know. I haven’t heard any of those things mentioned specifically, just spitballing. But they don’t seem like a team ready to put their collective foot down on anyone’s throat.

Maybe they don’t care about the optics. Just be them and care less what others think