Series Preview: Rangers vs. Blue Jays

The last time the Rangers and Blue Jays faced off, Toronto finished the series six games over .500 and just 2.5 games back of New York in the AL East. Since then, the Jays have lost 43 of 68 games to fall 23 back of the Yankees, 12 games under .500, and into the bad graces of their own fans. They haven’t done the Rangers any favors either, going 0-6 against the Red Sox in the last two weeks.

The Jays’ fall really started back in July, but it hasn’t been helped by the drop off that ace Roy Halladay has experienced of late. Since the trade deadline passed with him still north of the border, Halladay has gone 2-4 with a 4.71 ERA and pushed himself out of Cy Young contention. The collapse has even left Jays fans wondering whether the things that have gone right are simply a fluke — like Aaron Hill — and questioning what went wrong.

So not only is the upcoming series between Texas and Toronto a vital one for the Rangers, who have fallen 3.5 back in the wild card race, but it’s seemingly one they should dominate as well.

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Series Preview: Rangers at Twins

The Rangers moved to 16 games over .500 after taking two of three from the Yankees in New York, while the Twins dropped to a game below even after a 5-1 loss to Baltimore yesterday. Despite the discrepancy in their records, both teams are within striking distance in their respective divisions, with the Rangers four games behind Los Angeles and the Twins 4.5 back of Detroit.

That means both teams will have plenty to play for in the Metrodome this weekend, even beside Joe Mauer’s run at the AL MVP.

In stark contrast to past years, the biggest obstacle the Twins will have to overcome in making the postseason is their pitching. It’s gotten so out of hand in Minnesota that, even after dealing for a pitcher with a 5.00+ ERA in Carl Pavano at the deadline, they’re might be looking into another one, former Red Sox hurler Brad Penny.

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Linkin’ Park: Lurking Around The Web For You

Tom Grieve didn’t know what to say. Jamey Newberg almost got sick. The ninth inning in Yankee Stadium last night felt generally like a gut punch. And that was after a Rangers win.

So who’s to blame after a near collapse like that? Kevin Millwood’s tiring arm for starting the mess with a four run first inning? Jason Grilli and Frank Francisco, who allowed the first six batters to reach in the ninth?

Or maybe, just maybe, it was Neftali Feliz’s fault. Maybe Feliz is too good. Maybe he’s the pitching equivalent of a batting donut, and anyone who follows his act seems easy by comparison.

It’s not likely, or even plausible. But it’s somehow more comforting than the notion that no lead is safe anymore.

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Series Preview: Rangers at Yankees

The good news for the Rangers is that their two biggest competitors for the wild card spot, Boston and Tampa Bay, still have games to play against baseball’s best team, the New York Yankees. The Red Sox will head to Yankee Stadium on the final weekend in September for a three-game series, and the Rays have four games in New York and three in Tampa left on their Yankee ledger.

The bad news is that those games don’t come for a while, and the Yankees might cool off by then. Texas, however, has the misfortune of facing the Bronx Bombers in the midst of one of the hottest stretches any team has enjoyed this year. New York is 27-9 since the All-Star break. Not only do they own MLB’s home best record, but they’ve taken baseball’s best overall record from former manager Joe Torre as well. Their big offseason acquisitions are paying off, with C.C. Sabathia leading the majors in wins and Mark Teixeira making his case for an MVP candidacy. And they’ve got a pretty good shortstop, too.

So life is good in the Empire, while the Rangers are, at the moment, on the outside looking in. That’s why the upcoming series at Yankee Stadium should mean more to the road team. Because it has to.

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Series Preview: Rangers at Rays

The focus in the AL wild card race has been on Boston and Texas for the last few weeks, but Tampa Bay has quietly kept themselves within striking distance. The Rays could tie the Rangers with a sweep of the three-game series at Tropicana Field that starts tonight, and with Tampa owning a 40-20 home record and Texas being a game under .500 on the road, it could be a tough series.

Though the Rays are playing well of late, a few of their key offensive parts have struggled. Jason Bartlett is coming back down to Earth after an scorching start to the season. Pat Burrell hasn’t been what Tampa expected when they signed him in the offseason. BJ Upton, who could be the next Grady Sizemore, feels like he’s been “kicked in the face” by a move to the nine spot. Even Carl Crawford’s .321 average hasn’t made him immune to criticism.

And if Rangers fans aren’t starting to see parallels between their season and the Rays’ run last year, maybe they should look harder.

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Linkin’ Park: Lurking Around The Web For You

The biggest news out of Arlington in the last two days wasn’t how the Rangers stretched their wild card lead to a game with a win Monday night, or how they lost it just as fast with a tough loss Tuesday. It wasn’t how a 28-year-old rookie catcher with a .223 average in triple-A is now a career .500 hitter in the big leagues, or even how a 37-year-old veteran catcher was traded back to the team he started with from just down the road.

The biggest news came at 11:01 p.m. Monday night, when it became official that the Rangers had failed to sign their 1st round pick, Klein native Matt Purke.

When the Rangers drafted him, Purke had made it clear he wanted a serious signing bonus or he’d be honoring his commitment to TCU. And while the Rangers were serious, they apparently weren’t serious enough. Reports surfaced that Texas had placed a guaranteed $4 million on the table for Purke, but he balked and chose Fort Worth over Arlington. Jamey Newberg just doesn’t get it just doesn’t understand Purke’s decision. Kevin Sherrington says the Rangers blew it. But Randy Galloway thinks there were other factors afoot. Like MLB stepping in and telling the Rangers they could offer Purke no more than $2.3 million. Evidently the league office didn’t like the idea of paying for the Rangers’ dinner if they were going to order filet mignon. (more…)

Weekend In Review

It was a big weekend at InsideCorner, mostly because Evan dished the dirt on the five worst Rangers teammates he’s covered. But there was also something about a playoff chase and a big series against Boston that created quite a buzz.

The Rangers managed to win their series by taking two of three from the Red Sox despite having to put their biggest power threat on the DL. And just when the news that Ian Kinsler would no longer be out — or in the leadoff spot — after a hamstring injury had hampered him, the disabled list claimed another Ranger, as catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia will miss at least two weeks with shoulder problems.

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Series Preview: Rangers vs. Twins

The past few weeks could not have provided more polar opposite results for the Twins and Rangers. While Texas has won seven of their last ten and left fans buzzing after taking control of the wild card race Sunday afternoon, the Twins are 4-10 in the month of August and used an ugly weekend series with Cleveland to fall to six games back in the AL Central.

The skid has left Twins pundits to prophesize that their season is already over, even if they still have reasons to play. But they haven’t won a series since the end of July, and they haven’t won a series on the road since the last time they were in Arlington, back on July 19.

But that was nearly a month ago when these two teams had completely different outlooks. Now, the Rangers are riding a hot streak and have a chance to create some cushion between Boston and themselves as they host a four-game series with the Twins. But the pressure is on Texas to maintain their lead in the playoff race, and they have to avoid a let down against a struggling opponent.

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Series Preview: Rangers vs. Red Sox

It’s the biggest series of the season. For real this time.

With fewer than 50 games remaining, a time by which they’re usually playing for a draft pick, the Rangers find themselves in the thick of a few playoff races. While they’ve has managed to stay within striking distance of the Angels for the AL West crown, a run at the first wild card berth in team history could be their best shot to make it to October.

Which is why a matchup with an East Coast team — the Boston Red Sox — has major implications moving forward. The Rangers are 5-1 against Boston this year, including a perfect 3-0 in Arlington, but despite the fact that the Sox are coming off a 2-0 loss to Ranger tormenter Justin Verlander on Sunday, they’re feeling pretty good about themselves.

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Linkin’ Park: Lurking Around The Web For You

When news of Vicente Padilla’s release came Friday night, nobody seemed more surprised than he did. But after a seemingly failed attempt to catch his attention by placing him on waivers in June was followed by a bloating ERA and antics in Oakland two months later, the Rangers’ decision to continue their youth movement seems to make sense.

So Dustin Nippert, a former top prospect in the Diamondbacks system, took Padilla’s spot as a starter. And while the peripherals were good in Nippert’s first start while solidly entrenched in the rotation (6 H, 0 HR, 10 Ks in 6 IP), the end result was not, leaving the Rangers to scratch their heads in befuddlement as to why they’ve struggled against sub-.500 opponents.

But that’s a risk you run when you commit to youth. Sometimes the results are bad. And sometimes, they’re really, really good.

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Series Preview: Rangers at Indians

After a week of late nights on the West Coast, the Rangers are going to do their best to get their games in early for the next three days. Texas and Cleveland will play the first two games of their three-game set at 6:05 p.m. and cap it off with an odd 11:05 a.m. start on a getaway day that should give the Rangers plenty of time to make it back to Arlington for a vital series with the Red Sox.

But Texas’ focus for the moment is on Cleveland, and for good reason: despite their 48-63 record, the Indians have won four of five and are four games over .500 since the All-Star Break. It’s the first time the teams have met since their season-opening series in April that Texas swept, outscoring Cleveland 29-14 (almost ten runs a game!) in the process. But it’s a much different Indians team the Rangers will have to face this time around. Two of the three starters Texas saw, Cliff Lee and Carl Pavano, were dealt — along with many, many others — for prospects, so if you need name tags to keep the new faces straight in Cleveland, you’re not the only one.

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Weekend In Review

As the Rangers headed into their Biggest Series Of The Season v. 12.0, Michael Young was scorching hot and riding a 13-game hitting streak. But after going 3-6 with a homer in the opener, Young cooled off, managing just one hit in nine at bats over the final two games.

It was a bad weekend for Hammys as well. Andruw Jones acknowledged that his is not at 100 percent after he was thrown out Thursday in Oakland trying to stretch a 360-foot RBI single into a double. He went 0-8 over the weekend against the Angels. Josh Hamilton admitted that photos taken of him in a bar in January were real. He managed a 2-4 outing after verifying the pictures, but the Rangers lost the game and he was the only Texas player not to record a base hit Sunday.

Then came the news that Vicente Padilla was released and C.J. Wilson was demoted to 8th inning duty in favor of Frank Francisco. All of this seemed to come at just the wrong time for Texas, who was in need of at least two wins in L.A. to stay close in the division race.

But none of it mattered, at least not yesterday, because Derek Holland is pretty good.

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Series Preview: Rangers at Angels

Even if they don’t own the ML’s best record, it’s hard to deny what the Angels have been saying for two months. They’re the best team in baseball. Los Angeles is 35-13 since June 12, a record made all the more unfathomable when you consider the club is 27th 26th in the majors in ERA. The normally pitching-heavy Angels have had to do it with an offense that has been without their big guns for a while. Losing Vlad Guerrero, Juan Rivera, and All-Star Torii Hunter took some pop out of a lineup already lacking power, but L.A. has parlayed a .289 team batting average into 5.71 runs per game, both ML-bests.

Erick Aybar hit .414 for the month of July. Bobby Abreu wasn’t far behind at .380.  Kendry Morales just took home AL Player of the Week honors, and Abreu one-upped him by claiming the Player of the Month title. Vlad is back (again) and Mike Napoli is embracing his role as a DH. Things are going so well in L.A. that Gary Matthews Jr. feels validated by the .668 OPS he’s posted since replacing Hunter in July. Maybe a tad premature.

But the Rangers will still have their hands full with a three-game series at Angel Stadium, and by Sunday night, Texas could be as close as 1.5 games and as far as 7.5 games from the AL West lead.

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Revisiting Rangers-Red Swap Of Edinson Volquez (And Danny Ray Herrera) For Josh Hamilton

SI.com’s Jonah Keri takes a look back at the monumental swap that sent Volquez to Cincinnati for Hamilton following the 2007 winter meetings. It’s good reading – right up until the point Keri talks about Hamilton hitting home runs at “Ameriquest Field.”

Note to Mr. Keri: While your baseball thoughts are good and all thatt,  the stadium still stands, but Ameriquest doesn’t.

Linkin’ Park: Lurking Around The Web For You

Against all I know to be true in the world, it happened. The Angels lost on the road. They were 16-3 in their last 19 road games heading into yesterday’s series opener with the White Sox — and 15-1 in places not named Arlington — but Chicago managed a walk-off win thanks to Scott Podsednik’s 100th hit of the season. Because they had Monday off, that puts the Angels at 0-1 for the week.

And yet, due to a rough 10-inning stretch, all the Rangers have managed to do is drop a half game in the standings. It started with a 9th-inning collapse Monday that culminated in an injury to Nelson Cruz on the game’s final play. Cruz is hoping to avoid a stint on the DL, but even a few days without their leading home run hitter could be problematic for Texas, writes Gil LeBreton. The Rangers followed with a hangover game that featured a heavy dose of Gio Gonzalez’s curveball. They lost by a 6-0 final.

So what Ranger topic can be broached today without causing indigestion? Oh, that’s easy.

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