rangers

End This Shitty Rangers Season With the Most Epic Silver Boot Ever

Wilbanks, , , ,

Huge loss by the Rangers last night. Huuuuge and clutch loss for us!

We almost screwed ourselves after building 3-0 lead through five. We were looking way too dominant and I was getting pissed.

Finally in the bottom of the 6th, Wes Benjamin was reminded that he’s a 27 year old rookie with no future in the league and was out there for one single job. He got it done. Six run shellacking to pull the D-Bags ahead and save our season.

Jack Leiter, here we come! Wooooh let’s go!

Second-to-last is all but wrapped. The Pirates have a matinee in a few minutes coming up and if they win that, they’ll have fucked up and won a four game series vs the Cubs. Kumar may be in reach!

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Four games left vs the crybaby disastros. Should we just let them win and get back to the rivalry next year? Seems like it would be worth it for Kumar, yeah?

Hmm actually, fuck no…

https://twitter.com/Salt_Dodger/status/1309001333115060224?s=20

We’re going for that Silver Boot baby! Let’s. Fucking. Go.

Lance Lynn is on the mound tonight. So glad we didn’t trade him. Give it to me Lance! Give it to me Lance! Push! Push!

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Other News:

The Marlins have been fucking up. Started off this Braves series with three runs in the top of the 1st, and then gave up four in the bottom frame. They’ve lost all three games and have been outscored 25-9. What the hell?

Fortunately, the phillies have been fucking up worse, losing 3 of 4 to the Nats (the team we beat over the weekend). The magic number has gone from 6 to 3 this week and we haven’t won a game yet. Sick.

Still, it’s only a one game lead right now. Hopefully Pablo Lopez rescues us tonight.

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Yu Darvish has his final start tomorrow against the White Sox. He spent most of the year in the drivers seat for Cy Young, but that pissant little bitch Trevor Bauer pitched his fifth straight gem last night. 

Yu was +2500 for Cy Young before the season. As someone who’s on that and also went on Twins to win the Central to make up for all the failed Rangers tickets, this is a huge ass game for me. Definitely will be my intermission activity during Stars.

End This Shitty Rangers Season With the Most Epic Silver Boot Ever

Rangers Can Salvage the Season With a Clutch Loss to Arizona Tonight

Wilbanks, ,

In the month that has passed since getting ritually massacred by Slam Diego and their four straight grand slams, the Rangers season has gone from doomed to straight up catastrophic.

They ended that Padres series at 10-14 and proceeded to trash up the joint over the ensuing weeks for a 3-13 record. Somehow, that losing streak was so great that the Rangers finished Labor Day within the grasp of the greatest beacon of hope this franchise has ever seen.

Standing at 13-27, the Rangers were a half game ahead (behind?) the Pittsburgh Pirates for dead last in the MLB and the rights to draft this guy…

Holy shit. Fuck winning. We’re still rebuilding anyway. We can make a run for this blindian sensation and get one of the most badass prospects I’ve ever seen!

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Not so fast, says Lance Lynn as he immediately spearheads a series win vs Angels and a split with the freakin 1st place Athletics.

What the hell, man? We had nothing to gain by winning and everything to lose! Why, whhyyyy did we have to start winning all of a sudden?

The worst part – we could have easily traded Lynn for a haul at the deadline. If it weren’t for Shane Bieber, he’d be in the drivers seat of a Cy Young race. He’s an ASSET and then some for prospective playoff teams.

1.93 ERA and .92 WHIP going into the deadline. A 4-1 record with our garbage ass offense. This is a bonified ace starting pitcher for chrissakes! What is he doing on our team still??

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Jon Daniels said the offers weren’t good enough, but that’s hard to believe and his seat has grown hotter than it’s ever been. This is a tough pill to swallow.

Anybody’s who’s read my baseblogs before will know that I’m a huge Jon Daniels apologist and that isn’t changing any time soon. I find it impossible to believe he’s as stupid as he’s seemed to look this year.

A more likely theory is that our sketchy-as-hell ownership group found themselves in a serious bind by building a new stadium (albeit after scamming the hell out of Arlington) and opening it in a fan-less pandemic season. On top of oil markets crashing all year, the owners are kind of fucked and need to sell tickets next year. They wouldn’t sign off on a tear-down.

It’s a much more sound theory than the idea that our god GM, who’s been among the smartest men in baseball for 15 years, would be so mind-numbingly over his head at the trade deadline.

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Fortunately, there’s still hope for 2020. We won’t be able to finish last place, but it looked like that was out of reach from the start because the Pirates are just so god damn awful that out-losing them was impossible. But we do have a shot at second to last…

And there’s another pitcher from Vandy that’s apparently almost as good as Kumar – Jack Leiter. Oh shit, that’s awesome!

We entered a two game series at Arizona last night, and the Rangers struck first with a clutch as hell blowout loss. D-bags over Rangers in a 7-0 drubbing. Love it.

If we lose tonight, we have a 3.5 game cushion over those fuckers with just four games vs houston remaining. The battle for Leiter would be all but won.

Come on Rangers – LOSE!!

We’re starting some shitty 27 year old rookie named Wes Benjamin.

D-bags -151. Lock it up.

Rangers Can Salvage the Season With a Clutch Loss to Arizona Tonight

Rangers Humiliated in Historic Fashion by ‘Slam Diego’

Wilbanks,

The Rangers have gone 1-8 over the past ten days and the season is absolutely lost. There was a sliver of hope right before this losing streak when we recovered from a disastrous start to make it back to .500 and start making moves on the playoff race. That’s all gone now.

Not only did we plummet in the standings, but we got embarrassed in the national media for being on the pussy end of an ‘unwritten rules’ controversy.

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I’ll just say this about the beanball – I think it was overblown as most of these stories usually are. All sports have moments where players just need to take out their frustrations on an opponent. Hockey has fighting, basketball has hard fouls, and football has the general play of football.

In baseball, the only options on the table are hard slides and beanballs. Hard slides end seasons while beanballs are just temporary pain and a free base. It’s not that big of a deal and I don’t care that the Rangers wanted to take out frustration on someone running up the score.

What I am embarrassed about is that our beanball just completely missed Machado. We then proceeded to have a historically humiliating week by giving up grand slams in each of the remaining games in the series.

Hey Padres announcers… ER!! It’s not “everything’s big in Texas”.  It’s “everything’s bigg’ER” in Texas. Get it right.

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The season is fucked. Dietrich has gone 2/17 since I last wrote about him as a savior for the offense. Montero, as seen in the video above, has looked human since the time I sang his praises. Everybody else sucks too.

There are only two bright spots and they come in the form of trade chips. Lance Lynn is easily the best pitcher on the market. He recorded the only win of this 1-8 streak. Joey Gallo has two more years of control and is one of the most valuable bats on the market.

In what should be a major seller’s market with over half the league in a playoff race, those two assets alone could yield the type of return that we got for Teixeira back in 07.

And that’s the key here. We are in full rebuild mode for the first time since that Teixeira trade kickstarted an almost dynasty. JD has been selling prospects for most of his tenure here and it’s reaped a lot of rewards that unfortunately fell one strike short (twice) of the ultimate prize. Now he gets another crack at doing it from scratch.

The season wasn’t supposed to be about winning; it was about getting better. Let’s see how deadline week works out before calling the entire thing a failure.

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Side note – the Padres, who are run by former JD protege AJ Preller, acquired Fernando Tatis Jr in a swap for James Shields. Jesus christ that is such a ridiculous trade.

Rangers Humiliated in Historic Fashion by ‘Slam Diego’

Derek Dietrich Joins the Rangers and Immediately Wins Us Three Straight Games

Wilbanks, , 1 Comment

Jon Daniels did more than just gift us Rafael Montero (the coolest closer in the league) to turn the season around; he got us a badass new batter too. Derek Dietrich first entered the lineup on Wednesday and immediately won us three straight games. Let’s break it down…

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Dietrich’s ability to take an HBP is one of the things he’s been known for in the past, as he led the MLB with 24 in 2016. He knows the value of a free base and he stands firm like a man when a pitch drifts his way. This came out big in his first game with us.

Down 4-0 in the 6th and us getting dominated by Seattle all game, Dietrich takes a two out HBP that he easily could’ve avoided. That free base turns into a stolen base when he catches Seattle in a shift, which turns into a 2 out run.

A comeback win ensues and we take the series against the Mariners.

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Next game was at Colorado on Friday night. Pinch hitting in the top of the 8th with a 2-2 tie, he takes one for the team again. You could hear the ball crack against his bone it was so loud.

By getting on first base, he opened the infield for a Choo bouncer to get through. A couple batters later, bam we got a game winning GIDP RBI.

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It doesn’t always have to be scrappy; he can get runs the old fashioned way too. Case in point the very next night in Colorado. Tenuous 3-2 lead in the top of the 8th. Two outs, two runners on and the first pitch he sees turns into a Dietrich Dong.

Boooom! Game iced. Rangers are ABOVE 500 for the first time since Opening Day.

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Dietrich was playing regularly for the Marlins from 2015-2017, the first two seasons of which were really good. When Dee Gordon got suspended for steroids, he became the regular 2B and hit .279 and an OPS+ of 121.

He was helping the Marlins mash in a lineup that also included Stanton, Yelich, Realmuto, and Ozuna. Once the fire sale started, his play slipped and he eventually started bouncing around to the Reds and Cubs minor league systems.

He got released last week and JD snapped him up within a day. What a pickup it’s been so far. Not only is he winning games for us, but he’s also put trash ass Odor on the bench so that dude can stop losing games for us.

What an August for a rebuilding team huh?

Derek Dietrich Joins the Rangers and Immediately Wins Us Three Straight Games

Rafael Montero Is the Coolest Closer in the League

Wilbanks, , 2 Comments

Are the Rangers any good? No. Are they in playoff position regardless? You bet your ass they are!

One of the reasons for that is our new shut down closer Rafael Montero. He got his first save a week ago and has been 4/4 since. Four innings, four strikeouts, four saves, and ZERO baserunners allowed.

Another diamond in the rough discovered by our lord and savior Jon Daniels. He signed a minor league contract last year while recovering from Tommy John, and now he is a bonafide badass closer. At WORST, he could net us some sick prospects in a trade for the price of… nothing!

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Earlier in his career (2016-2017), Montero was a big time prospect for the Mets. I spoke with some Mets fans and they both said that Montero starts were appointment viewing for a time, but injuries and poor organizational development fucked him over. At any rate, he’s 10x the closer that Ed-lose Diaz is.

One of the reasons he might be working out better here than Queens is the switch from rotation to the bullpen. He’s been throwing 97% fastball and changeups, but his fastballs move slickly and paint black. It’s a closer’s repertoire.

Montero also has the perfect demeanor for the role. He checks off all three C’s of closer intangibles perfectly – cool hair, confidence, composure. 

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When José Leclerc comes back from injury, he can share setup duties with rookie phenom Jonathan Hernández. Then we have Kluber possibly coming back as the best middle reliever of all time, and all of a sudden our bullpen is the best it’s been since 2011.

‘Minor, Lynn, and what then?’ is now ‘Minor, Lynn, and our badass bullpen’. Thanks Jon Daniels!

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Series win at Seattle. We are now officially in mid-August with meaningful Rangers baseball. If the bats suck a little bit less, we’ll be in the playoffs with one of the best pitching staffs in the majors. Can’t ask for anything more in a rebuild year.

Let’s get after it

Rafael Montero Is the Coolest Closer in the League

Rangers Are in Playoff Position Because the Angels Really Fucking Suck

Wilbanks, ,

After sweeping those sad sack Angels over the weekend, look what we have here…

We had the worst start to the season imaginable and yet are sitting in playoff position with the Mariners at home on deck. The lottery ticket futures are still alive. We have some meaningful Rangers baseball in August ladies and gentlemen!

Our grittiest win came on Saturday – two run shot by God Gallo to win a 2-0 shutout. Our boy Kolby Allard went 5 innings for two hits, one walk, and six strikeouts. He’s at a 1.00 ERA through two starts now. Once again it’s looking more like we won a prettyyy pretty decent trade rape.

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On the other side of the token we have the Angels. Wooooof.

Anthony Rendon, their new seven year $245M man, is on a hitless streak of 28 plate appearances and counting. He’s holding a steady .103 average overall. So glad we didn’t sign him.

Joe Maddon is as overrated as ever. Pujols is still on the payroll. Mike Trout seems to be handling his new fatherhood the same way Serena handled new motherhood – just kidding he’s actually still good. Everyone else around him though? Trash like always and it’s awesome.

The best/worst part of this dumpster fire is none other than our little friend, that traitorous scumbag Shohei Ohtani. He’s done pitching this year after racking up a 37.80 ERA over two starts. Those two starts lasted 1.2 innings total. He couldn’t hit 90 with his fastball because his elbow is permanently damaged, so he might actually be done pitching for good.

As for hitting, Ohtani has a .171 batting average and is striking out on 36.5% of his at bats. Sick.

God it must suck to be an Angels fan. They will never recover from that Hamilton contract. Ever.

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However, yes I will admit this one thing about the Angels… Since divisional realignment in 1994, they are the only team from the AL West to win a World Series. 2002 – what a wack ass year for sports with the Angels and the Bucs both getting those anomaly titles. But nonetheless that is more than any other team in our division can say. Respect.

Rangers Are in Playoff Position Because the Angels Really Fucking Suck

Kolby Allard for Chris Martin So Far Is a Trade Rape

Wilbanks, 1 Comment

The Rangers lost 2 of 3 in San Francisco, bringing our record to 3-5 against three trash teams. We have division games coming up that could turn our season around because division games are way more important, but that would require a complete 180 in our play. The season looks pretty hopeless right now.

However, the future is never hopeless with Jon Daniels at the helm, and one example why came in our lone win of the series on Sunday. 22 year old prospect Kolby Allard got his first start of the season was prettyyy pretty decent! Four innings (had a hard count of 80 pitches), two hits, two walks, and one run from a sac fly. It’s not great, but also not bad.

Allard was also pretty decent for us last year. In his first seven starts after arriving on deadline day, he went 7-1 and had four quality stars (two of those QS’s were one out short but I count them anyway). Also not bad!

It may not sound exciting and he’s no burgeoning star or anything like that, but he’s surely an early success story in the rebuild considering the trade that got him here. All it took was one spare reliever named Chris Martin. Dude had pitched for us for two years after rehabbing his career in Japan, and he was as spare as a spare 33 year old veteran could get.

Martin did have a solid stretch of not sucking too much for us last year, so for some reason the Braves thought he could be a setup man. Sure enough, in game 1 of the NLDS when they called him in to protect a 3-1 lead in the 8th, he had a season ending oblique injury in warmups and the Braves season went up in flames. Just a truly worthless asset.

Jon Jon Daniels being able to flip that for what is so far a respectable 22 year old starter is very commendable. We also got Nick Solak from the Rays for another spare reliever Peter Fairbanks last year. Nick Solak is not a spare though; he’s hitting .281 in his career so far and could end up rookie of the year if he goes on a hot streak. Two solid trade rapes for our boy JD.

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Until very recently, it had been almost ten years since we’ve seen JD trading for prospects. He was mostly unloading them for guys like Cole Hamels so we could rack up a bunch of one seeds from 2010-2016. We almost forgot just how damn shrewd he was in stockpiling those prospects in the first place. As long as Jon Daniels is around, the rebuild won’t last long.

Kolby Allard for Chris Martin So Far Is a Trade Rape

Is Joey Gallo God?

Wilbanks, 1 Comment

If Joey Gallo isn’t god himself, he certainly has a close connection to the man upstairs as this moonshot was headed straight his way

It was the first home run in Globe Life Field, known locally and here forevermore as ‘The Gilf’. It was also one of the only times our offense ever scored in the first weekend of The Gilf. The homer counted for one of just five total runs in the first series.

In the opener against the Arizona D-Bags on Tuesday, we were no hit through 6 innings and scored only once. That means six total runs over four games. Just god awful.

The season was on the brink Wednesday afternoon, and our god Joey Gallo stepped up to be our savior

Kicked off the most soothing five run 8th inning I’ll ever experience in the month of July. Fucking finally.  Series split, 2-3 record overall, and a trip to the trash ass Giants up next. We are right back in the thick of things.

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The key lesson from this homestand is that The Gilf is definitely a pitchers park. Our offense was not ready, being used to the old ballpark that had short fences, hot humid air, and a jet stream out to center. They’re not gonna hit homers here the way they could back there. Most players in the league won’t be able to hit much homers here, except for Joey Gallo that is.

If the rest of our lineup adjusts, we could have a difference maker with God Gallo being a power threat no other team can match. Pitchers parks are also awesome for winning playoff games. The lottery ticket of the century is still alive.

Is Joey Gallo God?

Corey Kluber’s Rangers Tenure Lasts One Inning – Fucking Hell

Wilbanks,

Horrible opening series for the Rangers. One tense win followed by two bad losses against a bad Rockies team. So far, this team sucks.

Our offense scored five total runs over three games so they might be fucked without the old park. Pitching was tenuously solid enough to keep things close, but our god awful atrocious defense did their best to reverse any run suppression.

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The story of the series is Cory Kluber leaving Sunday’s start with back tightness after only one inning. He’s out for at least four weeks and will go to the bullpen if he does come back. If we don’t pick up his $18M option next season, then that means we just traded for Corey Kluber and paid him $7M per inning. And that is after proration. Just brutal.

We only gave up one prospect for him (Emmanuel Clase), but he was awesome and my favorite ever closer prospect. I would confirm the trade rape already, but he just got busted for an 80 game PED suspension so we’ll see how that goes. Maybe we’ll get to settle on a lose-lose draw.

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On the bright side, if Kluber does actually come back he could transform a bullpen that will desperately need help. That could be sick if we make the playoffs. Or we’ll just continue to suck and the season’s over in two months anyway. I’m fine with whatever.

Corey Kluber’s Rangers Tenure Lasts One Inning – Fucking Hell

Rangers 90:1 Is the Lottery Ticket of the Century

Wilbanks

This opening day is as good a time as any to remember that pre-trash can era, the Rangers dominated the American League. Not only did we make a mockery of the disastros in head to heads, but we cranked out division titles year after year as well as a bunch of 1 seeds and a couple pennants.

One strike away from a dynasty, twice, and then things fell apart over the course of seven whole years. Dynasty watch is always on the horizon in Texas though because Jon Daniels is still manning the helm. He was smart enough to rebuild the team while the competition was cheating, and now we come out the other side on a level playing field with a chance to make some serious noise this season.

If it isn’t clear enough by now – Rangers +9000 is the lottery ticket of the century. Keep in mind that through 60 games last year, we had a 32-28 record, good enough for second behind only the cheating disastros in the division and in the final wild card spot. That was without the expanded playoffs. Bet on the Rangers.

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The most exciting prospect of the new look Rangers is our 2nd year manager. Jon Daniels has an interesting yet very successful history of hiring managers… Ron Washington was the coolest cokehead ever, but ended up banging a Japanese reporter and had to resign. Banny Rooster led some heroic runs for us, but his offense analytics and John Wayne attitude quickly grew stale.

Currently with Chris Woodward, it seems we’ve found the sweet spot. He’s (almost) as charismatic as Washington, and his analytical background from the Dodgers is much smarter than anything Banny brought to us. It became clear last year that our rebuild would be accelerated under him, and our roster has only gotten better.

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Our rotation is no joke the greatest in Rangers history. Granted, that bar is very low. One single ace has made an above average Rangers rotation and that includes playoff years. This year, we have three in Kluber, Minor, and Lynn. THREE whole aces!

Our offense is always good and I have no doubt that will continue this season. Gallo was an MVP candidate before getting hurt midseason, and we have a rookie in Nick Solak who hit .293 in two months last year. He’s nasty and so is our offense with these two anchors.

The biggest question mark is the bullpen. It’s not very deep and we’re relying heavily on Jose Leclerc to give us something as closer. He’s got wicked stuff and was awesome in his first few seasons, but he was shaky last year after getting a big contract and a closer title. Hopefully he figures it out.

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Here’s a total list of my preseason futures bets:

  • Rangers World Series +9000
  • Rangers AL pennant +3300
  • Gallo AL MVP +5500
  • Gallo Most HRs +1500
  • Kluber AL Cy Young +1250
  • Darvish NL Cy Young +2500

Looking forward to not having to work next year

Rangers 90:1 Is the Lottery Ticket of the Century