Five reasons to be optimistic that June will be better than May was for Texas Rangers
The sun came up Tuesday morning in Colorado, according to an source (my sister) embedded in the state.
The sun also came up in Arlington, according to a well-placed source (me).
So, the baseball season won’t be stopping for the Texas Rangers, who endured a turbulent May that saw them finish with a 22-33 overall record after climbing to .500 early in the month at 18-18.
They slide into June having lost six in a row and 12 straight on the road as they entered a three-game series in Denver against the Colorado Rockies.
The Rangers haven’t been awful. They have been competitive. They just haven’t been good enough often enough. Inexperience, bad luck and, in some cases, a talent deficiency seem to be conspiring against them.
Alas, Tuesday was the dawn of a new month. The Rangers were 0-0, just like the other 29 MLB teams. Was that hope on the horizon?
Hope, Andy Dufresne often said, is a good thing. That’s one thing the Rangers have going for them this month.
Here are five more.
Adolis still hot
The Rangers’ best player in May, the best rookie in baseball and possibly the American League Player of the Month, still hasn’t been cooled off by opposing clubs.
Adolís Garcia has two homers and an above-average .780 OPS so far on the road trip, and he continues to provide pitchers with a choice: Let him beat them or Joey Gallo or Nate Lowe.
That aspect, Garcia’s presence, has been overlooked during his breakthrough.
Gallo producing
Gallo batted only .215 in May, so that will rankle some fans. But those same fans will take his .808 OPS.
Gallo swatted seven home runs, second on the team to Garcia’s 11, and four doubles. He’s still walking plenty, and, in an upset, his 33 May strikeouts were not the most on the team (Lowe, 36).
Can he be better? Yes. Does he need to be better? Yes. But he has been productive.
Jung healing
Out in Arizona, top prospect Josh Jung is nearing his 2021 debut. It likely won’t be with the Rangers this month, but the path to his MLB debut should begin in the next two weeks.
Jung has been recovering from surgery on his left foot in late March. Baseball activities are underway and camp games won’t be far behind.
The Rangers haven’t decided where Jung will begin, though the choices are Double A Frisco and Triple A Round Rock. His performance will dictate when the Rangers add him to their roster.
History shows that they Rangers will shake up their roster Aug. 1 following the July 31 trade deadline.
Home bodies
Some good news for a team that has forgotten how to win on the road: The Rangers play 15 of their 25 games in June at Globe Life Field.
The first of those games is Friday to open a three-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays, no strangers to the $1.2 billion ballpark after playing there last year in the World Series.
The Rangers are actually a decent home team. They went 16-14 at Globe Life Field in 2020 and are 13-13 so far this season.
Foltynewicz turnaround?
Don’t look now, but right-hander Mike Foltynewicz is pitching quite capably of late.
He followed up seven scoreless inning May 23 by allowing two runs in seven innings Saturday night. He has failed to log more than five innings only twice this season, his first with the Rangers, and allowed only four homers in May after allowing eight in April.
Foltynewicz is not as good as he was in 2018, when he made the National League All-Star team, but he’s pitching capably in a rotation that has struggled outside of Kyle Gibson.
Another reason for some June optimism? Gibson, one of the American League’s best starters so far in 2021, is expected to come off the injured list this weekend.
