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Monday, August 12, 2013

Soft Schedule, Lone Star State Neighbors Help Rangers Out of Funk In a Hurry

   Two weeks ago this morning: The Rangers had been swept in Cleveland. Back-to-back shutouts. No runs in 21 innings. Joe Nathan on the trade block. Six games behind the Oakland A's.
   Woe was us.
   And then ... A closed-door meeting. A Nelson Cruz season-ending suspension. Lots of Angels and Astros and crap on the soft schedule. Presto, the Rangers are in first place in the AL West.
   It gets better.
   *Friday the Rangers gave up only Leury Garcia to acquire Alex Rios - no offense to Mike Bacsik, but he's already the best No. 51 in franchise history, right? - and he promptly showed up in Houston and went 4 for 7 with a couple of RBI.
   *Just like that, Texas has won seven in a row, 12 of 13 and has gobbled up their division deficit and spit out a 1-game lead.
   *At 68-50, only the '99 team (69-49) had a better record after 118 games.
   *Martin Perez on Sunday accomplished something that Yu Darvish hasn't: A complete game. He became the second-youngest pitcher in Rangers' history to have a complete-game 4-hitter. Old-timers like me will remember the dazzling debut of 19-year-old Edwin Correa in 1986. (By the way, it wasn't that long ago that we were about to give up on Perez, right?)
   *And even more help is on the way, as Lance Berkman continues his rehab assignment.

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1 comment:

  1. While it may be a soft "stretch" of the schedule at least in baseball all teams within a division play the same amount of games against each team. Remember that the struggles of this team started in June during their roughest "stretch" of the schedule. At the end of the year the best team wins, unlike the NFL with their convoluted scheduling procedures.

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