On Opening Day, the Rangers will win the World Series
A sports betting site lists the local baseball team as one of five Major League clubs with the lowest odds to win the 2018 World Series at 200 to 1.
The Texas Rangers are joined in that pit of shame with the Baltimore Orioles, Chicago White Sox, Oakland Athletics and San Diego Padres.
Two hundred to one.
In November, after the Rangers win the World Series, I will collect the $20,000 on my $100 bet. The winnings should cover approximately one-eighth of a semester of college tuition when my daughter attends Harvard in 10 years.
It's Opening Day, and for one day our team is going to win the whole bleeping thing.
It's Opening Day, and for one day I am the President of the Texas Rangers' Optimist's Club.
It's Opening Day, and for one glorious day the Rangers are not only going to take back the American League West with a 92-win season, they are going to register that strike that eluded them in Game 6 and relocate the World Series trophy from Houston to Arlington.
It starts Thursday with a four-game sweep of the defending World Series champion Astros.
▪ On Wednesday, Houston Astros owner Jim Crane told KRIV of Houston, "We had a few problems with Texas last year, not wanting to switch games with us. There's plenty incentive to want to try to beat up on Texas, that's for sure."
Crane is referring to the infamous Hurricane Harvey series that the Rangers and Astros could not agree where to play, and ended up before 10 fans in Tampa.
The Rangers will use this vile trash talk as motivation for a Houston beat down that will launch them to six months of regular season success.
▪ On April 2, Bartolo Colon will make his debut for the Rangers and throw a complete game, 14-hitter in a 9-8 Rangers' win. The Rangers send him to the minors the next day, but promote him back four days later.
He will go on to pitch 200 innings and win 20 games in 34 starts for the Rangers. In doing so, he will achieve his goal of surpassing Juan Marichal for the most innings pitched in the Majors by a Latin player. Colon will also surpass Dennis Martinez's career win total of 245, the record for a Latin-born pitcher.
Because those are the only two reasons Colon said he came back to pitch, he retires before the Rangers play in the playoffs.
▪ Motivated after posting one of the worst seasons for a second baseman in the history of baseball, Rougned Odor breaks out and smashes his career-high for walks in a season with 33. His previous career high for walks in a season is 32.
▪ First baseman Joseph Gallo will hit 75 home runs, including one shot so powerful it will delay the construction of the new Ballpark. As a result, Arlington tax payers will vote to agree to transfer another tax of a bond of a ROTH IRA that will fund a new stadium for only $1.9 billion that will open in 2021, after the new park opens in 2020.
The bond will be paid off in 4214.
▪ Elvis Andrus bats .330, with 33 triples and 29 home runs. His agent, Scott Boras, will exercise an option to allow his client to become a free agent at the end of the season.
Rangers' GM Jon Daniels then signs Andrus to a "club friendly" 15-year, $900 million contract that will allow Andrus to be traded to the New York Yankees for nothing in return whenever he wants.
▪ During a June series against Colorado, Adrian Beltre suffers a mild left hamstring pull. Rather than go on the disabled list, Beltre takes an X-Acto knife and cuts out the muscle. He returns the next day and goes 3-for-4 with three doubles, including the game-winner in the 10th inning.
▪ Shin Soo Choo doesn't go on the disabled list. This can't be any more ridiculous than the previous predictions. Opening Day is all about hope.
▪ After starting the season 12-2 with a 2.14 ERA, starting pitcher Cole Hamels continues the process of turning into Bruce Wayne as he donates another mansion to a group of needy kids. The kids then have the home razed and build condos with a Starbucks.
▪ The Rangers sign Josh Hamilton to a minor league deal. In his first game back in the bigs, he pulls an 0-2 pitch that is three feet out of the strike zone over the right field wall for a 1-0 win against the Twins. Rounding third, Josh tears his ACL and is done for the year but vows to return.
▪ After coming back off the disabled list, lefty starter Martin Perez dazzles, and throws a shutout on Martin Perez PETA Night at the Ballpark.
▪ In the regular-season finale in Seattle on Sept. 30, Tim Lincecum notches his MLB-record 63rd save as the Rangers reach 92 wins.
▪ Behind two Hamels wins, and five home runs from catcher Robinson Chirinos, the Rangers sweep the Astros to advance to the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.
▪ The club hires Nolan Ryan to be the team's Ambassador of Fun, and he and former Star-Telegram sports columnist Randy Galloway sit on opposite sides of GM Jon Daniels in Game 7 of the World Series.
The Rangers fall behind 13-0, but score 14, two-out runs in the bottom of the ninth inning and win it on walk-off grand slam from Delino DeShields.
Preposterous? No.
It's Opening Day.
This story was originally published March 28, 2018 at 4:59 PM with the headline "On Opening Day, the Rangers will win the World Series."