The news today (4-12-11) was not all that great…. If you are a Ranger Fan, you know exactly what I am talking about. The news about Josh Hamilton being injured during the 1st inning of the afternoon game against the Detroit Tigers, and being out of action for six to eight weeks!
Now before we all start finding very tall buildings and jumping off, lets take a step back and remember that the League’s MVP miss most if not all of September last season when this team was in the heat of winning the Western Division.
With the bats that this team in its lineup, they are not going to skip a beat, and besides Hamilton through 12 games had not hit a home run yet this season, not that-that’s important, because we all know that he would come through—now we will just have to wait until June!
If we were to break down the play that has put this all in motion--- Hamilton is on third after hitting a RBI triple, then the next batter, hits a high pop up in foul territory, and the third base coach notices that no one is covering home plate…. He sends Hamilton home, not a bad aggressive play, but its only the 1st inning and there’s one out. Sending the runner would mean, he would have to tag the base then run, that’s 90 feet to the plate, and even without the pitcher covering home, its not a smart move at that moment. A variation to this play would have me send the runner half way down the line—then turn and have him come back—the only thing that it could do is maybe put him in a run down with the possibility of an over throw, or an error—or he’s safe back at third—2 outs and you still have another at bat to maybe capitalize on the runner in scoring position, but that’s hind sight!
The fact is, that Hamilton will be out for two months, and this team will still have the bats to compete and win games, and keep them right where they wish to be.
Pitching so far this early in the season has been surprising, and even with the puzzle pieces being inserted here and there, its been working.
Will the Rangers continue winning at the clip they started at? NO! And why not? You might ask.. well because its still April, and there are five more months of baseball to be played, including the playoffs, you can believe that this team will contend once again for the Western Division title, and from there, as we saw last year, its anyone’s bet.
No panic for now, and this season really doesn’t get started until July anyway, so we will sit through the rest of this month and make our way to June, and after that, its best to wait and see!
Its just a thought!
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