For What It’s Worth!

 

MY two cents worth—the Texas Rangers at the half way point in the season, with the All Star Game coming up in a few weeks, in Los Angeles, the main Ranger that is going to be representing this team is starting pitcher Martin Perez, who, with no doubt, deserves, it, had a tremendous month of May—June was pretty good, and mid July still looks like he is continue to be strong.

 HOWEVER! That brings us to the rest of the staff, and the team.

Lets take a look, shall we? Dane Dunning, has had maybe ONE or TWO quality starts, and is a 1-6 on the season, with 17 starts, and an ERA of 4.15. Now if I am Chris Woodward, (manager of the Rangers) I would say that Dunning is a sacrificial lamb, and that he’s on the mound to manage minimal damage. Not an overpowering pitcher, only recording 2 strike outs but gave up four walks—THREE in one inning to load the bases—and then added salt to the injury—hit a batter to drive in a run. YES, not a great outing.

Bullpen comes in and tries to keep the damage to a minimum, but Brock Burke enters the game and gives a solo shot to the number 9 hitter batting .209 with six homers coming into the game now has 7 on the season—lets add more misery to the situation in a game that the Rangers should, most likely have had to win, when an error on the Matt Bush who came on in relief threw the ball into the first base dugout area, and that sent the runner he had put on with a walk to third—the next batter up hits a single and that drives in the sixth run of the ball game for the Twins.

 Rangers do get a run back in the bottom of the 8^th with a solo shot to left field by Corey Seager—and that brings to with in one—and the Rangers are scrappy—they fight til the bitter end, but that’s just it they will get close the break your heart at the end.

 Bright spot for this Rangers team is the offense—the bats are there, though they lose Mitch Garver for the rest of the season due to elbow surgery that might be taking place as early as this week (July 11^th 2022), and from there who do the Rangers call up to replace him—if its Sam Huff, they will not have any more options for him if they were to send him back down, but since this is a season ending injury—there’s a possibility that he would stay up with the Big Team, and not have to worry—though the Rangers have a pretty good back up to Heim at Catcher, with #60 Miebrys Viloria, who took two runners down at second base, and beat them both by a pretty good mile. NO way that it was going to be contested that they were out.

 So the Rangers will get ready for the Swingin A’s as they come to Arlington, and take on the Good Guys, for a three game set, then Seattle after that—division rivals, and a chance to move up in the standings, they are in 3^rd place behind Houston and Seattle—15.5 games out of first place—and only 3.5 behind Seattle for 2^nd.

From this vantage point, the Rangers MIGHT be dealing before the trade deadline—however the ONLY player(s) that might be on the block for trade could be Seager (doubt anyone wants to eat that contract), Semien (again contract woes), MAYBE Heim, but that would have to be packaged with something else, prospects or draft picks, and we know that Perez has stated that he wants to STAY right here in Arlington, and work with the young staff and help them mature.

 The Garage sale sign is up, lets see if there are any takers and what sort of deals Chris Young (GM) and Jon Daniels (Pres) will make with other teams in MLB.

 Just a thought