The Best Man: A Look At Rangers Manager Ron Washington Vs. Other Class Of 2007 Debutants

Following the 2006 season, both the Rangers and Oakland started looking for new managers. The A’s chose to bypass Ron Washington and hire Bob Geren from their own staff while also interviewing Rangers coach Don Wakamatsu. So who got the better end of the deal. The chart shows overall winning percentages for all the first-time managers hired before the 2007 seasons. For whatever impact a manager has, as of right now, it certainly seems like the Rangers made the best move. Yes, Washington can be inconsistent with his strategic moves, but I’d still venture to say that unless it’s a seven-game series being played by two fairly evenly matched teams, a manager who gets his team to play hard is going to be worth more than one who plays the percentages.
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The Morning After: Rangers 5, Orioles 4

Alternate title: When the wrong thing is the right thing (bonus points for those who can name the JB song from which I stole that)

ALSO: Need your input! In honor of the over-analysis festival that is the NFL Draft, I will be picking 30 “somethings” during tonight’s Depot live game blog. I need your suggestions on what those 30 things can be. Right now, all I can come up with is 30 fave restaurants or 30 fave female celebs. I have a three-track mind: Baseball, food, women. Not necessarily in that order.

BALTIMORE – Thinking about last night’s Rangers win kep me up late into the night, which kept me in bed late into the morning, which means I’m late in getting this dispatch to you, but I thought it necessary to revisit the decision to not pinch hit for Chris Davis in the eighth inning.

Let me just say that if I was managing this team (well, now that’s a scary thought), I would have had Andruw Jones hit. That was my thought in the eighth inning last night, my thought after hearing Ron Washington’s explanation and my thought this morning.

That said, let me explain why sometimes managing by the gut, although it goes against all percentages, formulas and reasonable thought, may be the best long-term move.

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Young Again: Another Ninth-Inning Homer From Michael Young Leads Rangers To 5-4 Win Over Baltimore

D-tails – Boxscore: Rangers 5, Orioles 4; The Depot live game blog; Post-Game Show comment thread

BALTIMORE - The Rangers are adopting an NBA approach to baseball. All you’ve got to do is show up for the last two minutes, er, innings.

That’s when the game changes. Especially if Michael Young has anything to say about it.

In what is becoming a nightly occurrence, Young turned a game around Friday with a ninth-inning home run. This one came with a man on base and two outs and provided the margin in a 5-4 win over Baltimore. This homer followed the one he hit Wednesday in Toronto to send a game to extra innings. And that one followed the one he hit Sunday in Arlington for a walkoff win over Kansas City.

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Afternoon Snack: The Case Of Darren O’Day

There has been some chatter across this series of tubes we call an interweb that maybe Ron Washington shouldn’t have brought Darren O’Day in last night the minute the newest Ranger was finished getting frisked by Canadian customs. Every time the Rangers lose a close game (and sometimes when they win one),  a number of folks raise questions about managerial decisions. It’s what we do.

But let me say this: While I was critical of Washington’s decision to pull Michael Young with the bases loaded last Friday, I think he’s handled the pitching staff brilliantly the last few days. That includes last night.

Start with Sunday, when Washington played as if the club had a one-run lead against Kansas City late in the game, even though the Rangers trailed by two. Bullpen smothered the Royals. An eighth-inning rally tied the score. Michael Young hit a walk0ff homer. On Tuesday, Washington went to Frank Francisco for five outs because the Rangers needed some momentum, because Francisco was rested and because he was the best possible option.

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Off-Day Notes: Benson, Kinsler And Washington

2B Ian Kinsler and Kansas City Royals RHP Zack Greinke shared the AL Player of the Week Award. We’ve already discussed their individual performances, but to sum it up again, they were pretty good.

RHP Kris Benson will not start as originally scheduled on Wednesday. He will be pushed to the back of the rotation because of what has been termed “minor” elbow tendinitis. Benson is now scheduled to be pushed back to Saturday in Baltimore. If the tendinitis turns out to be not so minor, who wants to bet LHP Derek Holland will be moving up to the rotation? Every other starter, beginning with LHP Matt Harrison will move up a day.

Former colleague and all around busy beaver Richard Durrett talked to Nolan Ryan today and the President said the club is not discussing changing managers. Let me maintain this stance: This remains an important week for the Rangers. Have another road trip like the one last April that concluded with seven consecutive losses and there will be room made on everybody’s day planners to discuss the future. As we wrote this morning, Michael Young’s walk-off homer yesterday provides a good opportunity for the Rangers to jump-start the season. If it doesn’t give the Rangers a boost, then the situation could change.

Morning After: Thoughts On Rangers 12-3 Loss To K.C.

Sometimes after a good night’s sleep, you find yourself in a clearer state of mind to revisit the previous night’s game. Some thoughts.

1. The decision to pinch-hit for 3B Michael Young did not cost the Rangers the game. It is, however, a terrible message to send to the team and the fans. It was essentially a surrender. It’s OK to surrender AFTER your best guys have had their last, best chance to get back in the game. Ron Washington said he wanted to get Omar Vizquel an at-bat and some time at third. Fair enough. Why wasn’t that a consideration two nights earlier when the Rangers led 15-4 after seven innings? Baltimore had pulled its best players. Why not give Young or Ian Kinsler (who already had his cycle in hand) and Josh Hamilton the last two innings off then? It should probably be noted that after the Rangers left all their starters in, Andruw Jones got hit by a pitch that looked suspicioulsy purposeful in the bottom of the eighth. Think Baltimore was sending a message about etiquette?

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Ron Washington: “We Are Ready.”

The manager plans to deliver a pretty simple message to the Rangers before the opener today.

“I’m going to tell them we’ve improved our defense, we’ve improved our execution, our mindset is different,” Washington said. “Everything is a team accomplishment. We’ve got a lot of guys who were here for a big part of last year, I think the familiarity we have with all these guys is going to be important. These guys know what we’re looking for; that’s important. I’ve told them, ‘We are ready; we are ready.’ “