Saturday, June 11, 2005

rangers woes

The Ragners are in a slump, 2-8 in their last 10 after having a 9 game winning streak. The starting pitching has been lit up as of late, even Kenny Rogers, who has the lowest ERA in the majors, gave up all of his 5 run lead in the 6th inning tonight; his first non-quality start all year. Buck needed to pull his ace Rogers after he let 2 runners on with 2 outs in the 6th with Carlos Delgado coming up. Not 2 innings earlier Delgado took Rogers yard to break up a premature no-hit bid. Instead Buck let him pitch to Delgado who almost took him out of the park again, followed by a double by Mike Lowell (of all people) and so with it, the rest of his lead. The bullpen then gave up a homer in the 7th to Alex Gonzalez who wont hit more than 10 all year if he's lucky, thus chalking up another one in the loss column. In the last 10 games, the Rangers arent doing anything right, no pitching, no hitting (worst in the AL with 2 outs) and poor fielding. Its feast of famine. Like in previous years, the Rangers rely on the long-ball. They arent built for the hit and run, stolen bases and sacrafices of small ball so when they're just needing a run, they dont know how to produce. The Rangers have shown they have several holes they need to fix but finding which to fix first will determine if Buck Showalter gets this team to the playoffs come October... or to the golf links.

2 comments:

zam said...

Man, if I counted the ways I feel your pain, I would be typing all night - you know what kind of season my 'Stros are having.

On the upside, my boys are on a 5-game winning streak. Garner has really shaken up the line-up, and it seems to be working.

zac said...

I see its up to 6 in a row now for the stros! Fortunately the rangers finally figured out how to win one again.

I hope to have the time tomorrow to post about the recently release Ryan Drese, its an interesting story.