Why the Texas Rangers having baseball’s worst record might not be the worst thing
The countdown is on.
The Texas Rangers have 20 games remaining until this messed-up, shortened 2020 season is over.
It can’t come soon enough for the Rangers, who have lost six in a row yet have something to play for these last three weeks.
Here’s some Rangers Reaction from an 8-4 loss and four-game sweep to the Seattle Mariners.
Rock bottom
The Rangers have the worst record in baseball.
The worst, even if it is just by mere percentage points.
The worst.
At 13-27, they have lost one more game than the 13-26 Pittsburgh Pirates, who at no point in 2020 expected to have a winning record.
The Rangers did, and now the best thing they can win this season is the No. 1 pick in the 2021 draft.
That could actually be a very good thing.
Two Vanderbilt pitchers are considered the top two prospects in the 2021 draft — Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter. Either one would likely be the Rangers’ top pitching prospect, no offense to Ricky Vanasco, Cole Winn or Hans Crouse.
This isn’t a pick to mess around with. The Rangers have shown they like to sign their first-rounder for below slot and use that money in later rounds.
Not with this pick. Take the best player, pay him at his slot and don’t screw him up.
The Rangers have some work to do to get the 1/1. The Pirates are really bad, too, and there are others teams within striking distance.
But the Rangers don’t have it easy over their final 20 games. They play the first-place Oakland A’s four times and second-place Houston Astros seven times. There are also seven to go against the Los Angeles Angels, who just swept the Astros in a four-game series and will open a three-game series Tuesday at Globe Life Field.
The Arizona Diamondbacks account for the other two games. They are on the road, where the Rangers are an MLB-worst 4-17.
So, you’re saying there’s a chance.
Yeah, there is.
Positives for Gallo
Joey Gallo didn’t play Saturday as his hitting woes were mounting and a tough left-hander was waiting to make things worse.
He was relegated to cage duty, which ended up producing the kind of conversations that could turn his season around.
Gallo told hitting coaches Luis Ortiz and Callix Crabbe what he had been feeling at the plate, and they told him what they had been seeing. The truth might have hurt, but at least they landed on the same page.
The results have been positive, albeit in two games. Gallo has a hit in each, but not just a hit. He has hit balls hard and produced runs with them while sticking to an approach that had been working.
His mechanics, though, became flawed in part because he wasn’t hitting balls out at Globe Life Field that would have left Globe Life Park a year ago.
“So as a feel guy, you start opening up the front side a little more trying to do a little bit more,” Ortiz said. “So now the ball is getting popped up instead of being hit forward. We’ve tried to get his eyes to be more direct to the pitching and understanding what causes the power to work.
“It’s not like looking to drive the ball 500 feet. Can I control what happens around me, instead of away from me? The last two days he’s been ‘Man, I feel it now and I started to feel how it was last year.’”
Ortiz talked about how mature Gallo has become. He approaches the hitting coaches with thoughts he just didn’t have a few years ago, like wanting to hit the ball the other way.
“You’re starting to see, ‘OK, I want to become the most complete hitter that I can,’” Ortiz said. “He sees when he misses a pitch he usually hits. Now he’s realized it may be his setup or his tempo or too much effort level. And those are things we would not have talked about a year or two ago.”
Choo’s hand
The Rangers received what looks to be good news on Shin-Soo Choo, who had to leave Sunday’s game early with a sprained right hand.
He was injured diving into home plate on a two-run double by Gallo. Choo’s fingers became caught in the ground, and he was wincing in pain even as he came across home safely.
X-rays taken at T Mobile Park did not show a fracture, and the hope is Choo is back by Thursday or Friday. Manager Chris Woodward wants him back, too, even though the Rangers are clearly going young.
All those kids can learn a great deal from the 38-year-old.
“He’s a really good example to show our younger guys, the at-bat quality on a daily basis and how to prepare,” Woodward said. “The dialogue with him on a daily basis, how he goes through it with each at-bat, each pitcher, talking on the bench. Those things are invaluable to these guys. They need to hear it.”
Nick Solak, one of those young hitters, agreed with his manager.
“To be able to play with him, last year seeing it and this year as well, he is just a true professional,” Solak said. “There is nobody more prepared than he is, which is something I picked up on early last year. How much preparation he is putting in, how he knows exactly what he wants to do and can perform because he has that preparation and confidence of what he as studied is going to happen.”
This story was originally published September 7, 2020 at 7:39 PM.
