Outing vs. Rockies shows why Lance Lynn, Rangers aren’t taking anything for granted
A serious collection of championship hardware is piling up at the corner of Parkview Place and Greenway Road, and it has nothing to do with the Texas Rangers or Kansas City Royals.
Valley Vista High School is across the street from the Surprise Recreation Campus, the spring home of the Rangers and Royals, and the Monsoon’s girls basketball team captured their third state championship in the past four years Tuesday.
Really? The state title game was on a Tuesday?
It was, and the Monsoon drenched defending champion Chandler Hamilton 42-38 as Jennah Isai and Marison Davis scored 18 points apiece. Davis also grabbed 14 rebounds.
The good news for the Monsoon is that Isia and Davis return next season to defend the title.
This is a dynasty. Who knew?
Here’s the Surprise Five from Wednesday at Rangers camp.
1. Lance Lynn might rate as the one player, pitcher or position player, who would cause the least amount of springtime concern for manager Chris Woodward.
Lynn is a veteran. He’s proven to be durable in his career, aside from the season he missed because of Tommy John surgery. Everyone has a good idea what Lynn is going to give the Rangers.
But that doesn’t mean he can’t be better.
While his second spring outing didn’t look very shiny — he allowed four runs on seven hits over four innings — he worked on pitches that could make him more effective than he was in 2019.
Lynn threw a heavy dose of cut fastballs, breaking balls and changeups at the Colorado Rockies with the idea of honing those for his mix of pitches in the regular season.
Lynn would prefer to throw only fastballs, and last season threw the third-most in baseball (71.3 percent). But the Rangers convinced him after a couple of rough early outings that he would be more effective with more off-speed pitches.
He heeded the advice, and the result was a fifth-place finish in voting for the American League Cy Young Award. An effective changeup or cutter would be another way to keep hitters off balance and make his fastball more effective.
“The command was getting there as we got going,” Lynn said. “The cutter and breaking ball had good shape. I threw some changeups. The sinker was not quite where I wanted to, but that comes getting the pitch to go where you want it.”
Lynn still threw his heater, topping out at 95 mph on a first-inning strikeout of Mansfield High graduate Sam Hilliard. Lynn tallied four strikeouts.
Woodward said that while he doesn’t have to worry as much about Lynn, he still doesn’t want to take the right-hander for granted.
“We’ve had many conversations just about how to move forward, how to move the team forward, how to move himself forward, to try to stay ahead of him,” Woodward said. “We can’t say, ‘OK, he’s going to be what he was last year.’ And then all the sudden you get into a situation like, ‘What just happened?’ We don’t want to do that with any of our guys.”
2. Demarcus Evans finished off the Rangers’ 7-4 victory, working around a one-out walk for a scoreless ninth inning. The stuff that has made him one of the best relievers in the minors was evident, though maybe a little inconsistent.
But he has impressed the Rangers with his pitching and his personality, but needs help to make the Opening Day roster. He must show more consistency while others either struggle or are injured.
The thought, though, is that Evans will be in the major leagues in 2020 after finishing last season at Double A Frisco.
“I have a feeling he’ll impact our ballclub, whether it’s at the beginning or at some point this year,” Woodward said. “We like what we’ve seen with him. I like the kid, the way he competes, and the stuff is off the charts.”
The Rangers have been monitoring right-hander Jesse Chavez, who has been dealing with shoulder soreness. He threw Wednesday in a simulated game, and his next outing could be a Cactus League game.
3. More and more players have arrived ahead of the start of minor-league camp opening this weekend, and among those is center fielder Bubba Thompson.
He was the Rangers’ first-round pick in 2017, and the Star-Telegram ranked him as their No. 4 prospect based on the rave reviews club officials and scouts continue to give him.
Other publications weren’t nearly as kind after injuries wrecked his 2019 season, when he batted only .178 in 202 at-bats with 72 strikeouts. He was sidelined by a broken hamate bone early in the season and was injured again only a few games after his rehab assignment.
The Rangers asked him to go to the Arizona Fall League, and he obliged. Thompson represented the Rangers in the Fall Stars Game, and batted .253 with three homers and five steals in 71 at-bats.
It goes without saying that his No. 1 goal for 2020 is to stay healthy. He said he can get rolling again if he does.
4. Charley Pride, the country music legend and former Negro Leagues player who owns a slice of the Rangers, performed his annual concert at spring training. He’s as much of a fixture at Rangers camp as T.R. Sullivan.
Pride turns 86 in two weeks but is still out touring on a limited schedule. He’s scheduled to make three stops next month in Canada and WinStar World Casino just north of the Texas-Oklahoma border July 26.
“I just hope I’m able to move when I’m 85,” shortstop Elvis Andrus said.
Conveniently, Pride has nothing scheduled for March 23, when the Rangers open Globe Life Field with an exhibition against the St. Louis Cardinals, or March 31 during the first regular-season game at Globe Field against the Los Angeles Angels.
It probably wouldn’t take much arm-twisting to get him to sing the national anthem for one of those games.
The topic of who would sing the anthem for the home opener came up the other night among the beat writers. Pride was brought up a candidate, and so were Arlington-born Maren Morris and Burleson High grad Kelly Clarkson.
All agreed, though, that the Rangers won’t be able to top the Van Cliburn anthem before the Globe Life Park opener in 1994.
5. The Rangers reported Wednesday that construction of Globe Life Field is 98 percent complete.
A statue of Ivan Rodriguez was unveiled Wednesday, along with the unveiling of multiple sponsorship agreements. Some were with liquor companies, but none of them was able to secure naming rights for the press box.
The Rangers should find one, with the condition that it is stocked with product. How about the Patron Press Box? That has a nice ring to it, and the Rangers could sell a second sponsorship with Lyft or Uber to ensure that everyone gets home responsibly.
Hey, that ballpark isn’t going to pay for itself.
