Offense a big question as Rangers open season

For all the Texas Rangers players who say they don’t read or haven’t heard about the dismal 2015 forecasts for their club, there’s Derek Holland to speak up for them.

The first wave of bottom-feeder predictions came before Yovani Gallardo arrived. The second came after Yu Darvish had his elbow reconstructed by Dr. James Andrews.

Both waves came after the Rangers lost 95 games in 2014, after an off-season in which they did little spending, and after saying time and time again that the club’s success will be built upon injured players returning to previous performance levels.

“Losing Darvish added to it,” Holland said. “We didn’t make the big splash. We got Gallardo, which is awesome. I feel like people, once the injury happened, feel like it’s over. They don’t think about the other guys that are out and ready to play and healthy and ready to go.”

It’s now officially go time. It’s Opening Day. The Rangers begin the 2015 marathon Monday night at O.co Coliseum with Gallardo on the mound and with key offensive pieces back in place after injury-wrecked seasons or just bad ones.

The rotation, even without Darvish, rates as a club strength. But there are many questions about the offense, no matter what the Rangers say, and it had better be good if the Rangers want to surpass the low expectations that have been set for them.

“Until we do it, we don’t know,” first baseman Prince Fielder said. “If everybody’s healthy, we definitely have the talent, and everybody works hard enough. It could be great.”

Fielder rates as the biggest unknown after having cervical fusion surgery in May. The injury, Fielder has since hinted, first surfaced in 2013 but came to a head last season as he hit three homers in 150 at-bats, most of them with no strength in his left arm.

Whatever questions he had about himself were answered during a spring training in which he batted .341 with a homer and seven RBIs.

“When I hit my first homer I was all right,” Fielder said. “Until you do one thing, you always have doubts. I don’t think you’re human if you don’t. I think that’s why everyone works hard. You want to eliminate those doubts.”

Third baseman Adrian Beltre, who will be next to Fielder in the batting order, doesn’t have any doubts anymore either.

“He looks like the guy we feared when we played at Milwaukee and Detroit,” Beltre said. “He looks comfortable. He looks happy. Mentally he’s there. Physically he’s there. I can’t wait to be part of what he can do this year.”

The Rangers would take 25 homers and 100 RBIs from Fielder. That would mean that leadoff man Leonys Martin and shortstop Elvis Andrus are getting on base and causing havoc with their speed.

Right fielder Shin-Soo Choo could also find himself batting ahead of Fielder and Beltre. Choo’s 2014 season fell woefully short of expectations as he played much of the season with elbow and ankle injuries that would eventually end his season in August and require surgery.

His skill set, the one that earned him a seven-year, $130 million contract, will entice manager Jeff Banister to bat him as high as second because of his knack for getting on base or as low as fifth behind Beltre because of his power.

But every player has to do what the game asks of them. At a time when runs have become scarce across the majors, the Rangers must have quality situational hitting and smart base running as much as they need the on-base and power hitters to do their jobs.

“We talk about meeting the demands of the game and what does that look like on any given night,” Banister said. “You’ve seen that throughout spring training. Our offense has some areas that it has to hit consistently.”

If the offense does click, with players back at full strength and others performing closer to their capabilities after the dismal 2014, the Rangers will have a chance to exceed the low expectations that have been set for them.

They start a new journey Monday night.

“We cannot worry about what people think outside. We cannot,” Beltre said. “We have a tight group, and we’re all about showing what we can do out there. I believe in our team. I think this team is built to win.”

This story was originally published April 5, 2015 at 7:03 PM with the headline "Offense a big question as Rangers open season."