Texas Rangers GM Daniels staying positive in more ways than one despite early setbacks
With rumblings of the baseball season being in jeopardy less than 10 days after it started amid the coronavirus pandemic, Texas Rangers president and general manager Jon Daniels expressed some optimism about completing the season. And his own baseball team on Sunday afternoon.
Baseball is seemingly flirting with being shut down on a daily basis with players testing positive for COVID-19 and games being postponed. But Daniels sees a pathway to play the entire 60-game season despite these early disruptions.
After all, nobody expected a sports season to go unscathed during the pandemic.
“I’m confident we’re going to do everything in our control to get in 60 games,” Daniels said. “That’s probably the most I can say. Obviously the virus and the path that it takes are well out of our control. For me, there’s no stigma associated with someone getting infected or getting sick. Where it starts to become troublesome is if it spreads like wildfire through a group. Those are things that hopefully we can control somewhat.
“As long as the league can avoid that, and when I say the league I mean individual clubs, if we can all avoid that, I do think we can play throughout. I’ve seen it at home, I’ve seen it now on the road, our guys are being very diligent. That doesn’t mean we’re immune to it. There’s exposure in a variety of ways, but our guys are taking it seriously. If everybody has that same mentality, I do believe we can do this.”
One of the Rangers’ first significant tests will come on Monday, an off day in the Bay Area. Daniels expects most players to spend the day at the hotel, or possibly walk around the city.
Shortstop Elvis Andrus said he’ll enjoy some wine at the hotel, rather than taking a trip into wine country.
“We know it’s going to be a sacrifice, but this is a sacrifice season,” Andrus said. “We are going to have to sacrifice.”
Outside of the season itself, Daniels and Andrus expressed optimism about the team’s reeling offense figuring it out.
Andrus is preaching patience to his teammates these days. It’s too early to worry about one of baseball’s worst offenses that produced just 18 runs in its first seven games going into Sunday’s series finale at the San Francisco Giants.
“You cannot push the panic button right now,” said Andrus, who is off to a slow start himself (5 for 24). “I feel like we’re still having good at-bats, hitting the ball good right at people. That’s part of baseball. You either start good or you start bad. Don’t panic yet. Just keep working hard, going out there and competing. Sooner than later, we’ll get on a winning track.”
As a team, the Rangers ranked last among American League teams going into Sunday’s game in runs (18), batting average (.186), hits (41) and on-base percentage (.283). It doesn’t help that the team is dealing with injuries to significant pieces of the lineup.
The Rangers used their third different three-hole hitter on Sunday with Willie Calhoun getting the nod.
Danny Santana opened the season in that spot, but was just 1 for 17 at the plate. He landed on the injured list just before Sunday’s game with a sore right forearm that had limited him to batting left-handed and coming off the bench as a pinch runner. The Rangers recalled infielder Anderson Tejeda from the alternate training site to replace Santana.
Rougned Odor, who replaced Santana as the three-hole hitter, is struggling out of the gates himself, batting just .125. Odor is also battling an injury now, too, being held out of Sunday’s game with an oblique injury.
The Rangers are hopeful Odor won’t require an IL stint, as Daniels described Odor’s exam by the Giants’ doctor as “unremarkable.”
“It doesn’t appear like he has pulled a muscle, but he has some tightness around the area [oblique, ribs],” Daniels said.
All of it left the Rangers filling the three-hole with Calhoun, who entered Sunday’s game just 1 for 15 to start the season and lined out in his opening at-bat Sunday.
“The offense has been slow to get going,” Daniels said. “With the exception of a few spots, we haven’t really gotten the type of production that I think a lot of these guys are capable of.”
Daniels feels it’s too early to change for change’s sake. It’s still a relatively small sample size and, as Daniels noted, the options are limited with no minor league seasons.
The Rangers don’t have the luxury of calling up a player who is on a hot streak at Triple A, for instance. Instead, they’d be calling up guys who haven’t been playing in games and hoping they are more ready than the current roster.
“We’ve got to play better,” Daniels said, “But I don’t think a week’s worth of games is reason to run from that.”
This story was originally published August 2, 2020 at 4:11 PM.
