Series Thread: Rangers Host the Angels For Three Games April 15-17

[saddles]

Santos had a great outing tonight.

 

[fanman8825]

Santos had a great outing tonight.

I saw that 3 IP 0 ER and 5 KS
Too bad Round Rock blew a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the 9th. Hunter Strickland blew the save.
Crim with a Hr batting 387

 

[fanman8825]

The Rangers come home reeling from a 1-5 road trip. They are now only 2 games above .500. The media will continue to tell us not to panic and not to worry.

I am beginning to worry about this offense. As long as Burger and Pederson continue to slump, and as long as Semien and Taveras continue to follow their career paths, this offense is in trouble.

Burger and Pederson will probably get better, but they should not be starting every day while they are struggling so mightily. Of the two, Pederson is a little more troubling, simply because he is about to turn 33. Some guys get old fast near that age.

That brings up another problem with our offense. Marcus Semien is off to another bad start. Unlike how Evan Grant portrayed the situation, Marcus Semien doesn't get off to bad starts every year. He has had 3 really good years as a major leaguer. Those years have been 2019, 2021, and 2023. In 2 of those 3 really good years he has started off well, when judged by his first 18 games. Below are his OPS stats for each of those years.

2023 - .848
2021 - .624
2019 - .906

In 2024 Marcus Semien actually started off fairly well, but then had a poor season. In his last 3 poor seasons, he has gotten off to a bad start 2 times. Below are his OPS stats for each of those years.

2024 - .794
2022 - .457
2020 - .535

So, those numbers disprove the claim Evan Grant made. Evan was carelessly mistaken in his zeal to defend Semien.

When we first acquired Semien I was opposed to it because he had only put up 2 good seasons prior to us signing him. Thise were both really good to great seasons, but his offensive performance had always been inconsistent. I believe I said at the time that we most most likely would only get 3 good years out of him in the 7 year contract term that we signed him to. I may have been a tad too optimistic even in my pessimism.

There have been several players down through the years who stayed productive well past Semien's age. Adrian Beltre and Nelson Cruz are 2 good examples of that. Then there are the guys who barely make it past 30 before declining, like Elvis Andrus did. Semien will turn 35 years old before the season is over. Father Time may have caught up with him.

Marcus may get things turned around and have a fine year. We had better hope so, because Bochy will never bench him for more than 10 to 12 games total, the rest of the way.

Taveras is who he is. He is a guy who struggles for most of a season, but who will have 1 or 2 hot hitting streaks aling the way each year. Those hot streaks are like fool's gold. The streaks convince some folks that he has finally turned the corner and is turning into the really good player that they always thought he would be. We really need to hope that some GM feels that way when we finally get around to trading him.

Getting Evan Carter back to being the productive player that he was a couple of years ago is key in getting those in charge to finally give up on Taveras and trade him. We had better hope that that happens and that it happens very soon.

To me, I would rather trust Dustin Harris on the roster and move on from Taveras. If Osuna gets hot that would make two guys I would rather trust.

The question is, how long will those 4 guys continue to struggle and hold back this offense? Or, in some cases, how long will they be allowed to struggle.

We go into this series with the Angels with a different order in the rotation. Mahle pitches tonight, followed by Corbin and Rocker. Bochy has done this to have deGrom pitch in the Dodgers series.

Bochy has shown before that he likes to put our best foot forward when we match up with the best in baseball. He did that back in June of 2023 when we were going up against a Rays team that was off to a 46-19 start. That Rangers team seemed to respond in a bad way to that tactic by Bochy. That 40-20 Rangers team would go on to play under .500 the rest of that season. This team is already struggling, so maybe it will have the opposite effect this time.

In the mean time, we have 3 very important games against the Angels and no deGrom pitching in this series.

I predict that Semian will fall short significantly of the 237 he hit last year and not come close to the 23 hr and 74 RBIs.
He needs to move down the order but not confident Bochy will do that.
Semian probably bats over 200 but not by too much.

 

[saddles]

From Jamey Newberg:

The Rangers are missing Cody Bradford and Jon Gray for now, but have the second-best ERA in the American League at 3.20 and second-lowest WHIP at 1.07 and third-lowest opponents’ batting average at .213. Mahle’s 0.92 (two runs all year, in 19 ⅔ innings), 0.86, and .121 are a massive reason why.

The dude is 3-0, and in his one no-decision, Game Two of the season, the offense picked him up and beat Boston that night, 4-3.

He’s been so good.

 

[saddles]

I came across this in Facebook.

 

[WastinSomeTime]

Really wish there was a documentary about the Texas Rangers 2023 season.

 

[Kelleyman]

I came across this in Facebook.

View attachment 395054

Nice but IMO sounds AI written

 

[WastinSomeTime]

Nice but IMO sounds AI written

Yeah, I was excited when that popped up but I checked it out and saw where it is a fake article. Seems to be more and more of those.

 

[saddles]

 

[Duane1952]

Pederson 3rd, unbelievable.

 

[saddles]

Church down and Latz up

 

[saddles]

Teodo with another rough inning in relief. I wish they would have left that young man alone.

 

[fanman8825]

Pederson 3rd, unbelievable.

What a joke

 

[fanman8825]

Church down and Latz up

Wow interesting

 

[saddles]

From Jeff Wilson:

Jacob Latz was the choice from Triple A Round Rock because he has been stretched out and can give 3-4 innings if needed. #Rangers wanted a second long man to go with Caleb Boushley.

 

[saddles]

From Shawn McFarland:

Some notes:

• Jon Gray had his hard cast taken off yesterday. He’s healing well + thinks he could be throwing within a few weeks.

• Sounds like everything is okay on the Chris Martin front, Bochy thinks he’ll say he’s good to go.

• Status quo on Leiter/Langford.

 

[Senator_fan]

What a joke

Put Pederson on the IL with mental exhaustion and call up Crim

 

[saddles]

Jeff Wilson addressed the Rangers silence regarding some players medical and other situations during his podcast today. Apparently, they are way overboard on some of their efforts to be secretive, at times. I think my question about why the Rangers made sure Carter got extra at bats in spring training, while now he only plays about once every three or four days. Why the feast or famine? They have asked and have not been answered, questions about what they are doing with Evan.

 

[saddles]

Put Pederson on the IL with mental exhaustion and call up Crim

Blaine is in a slump of his own over the last few days, but not as bad as Pederson.

 

[Bmurph]

Anyone that would pencil in Pederson in the top 8 spots in a lineup right now, needs their head examined and probably their hind tail kicked. Just absolutely ridiculous