Rangers reaction on a day the nucleus was positively charged

One game and a couple of homers doesn’t change everything immediately. No one with the Rangers was saying anything of the sort, including Prince Fielder and Mitch Moreland after both hit home runs in the fourth Sunday to help beat the Pirates 6-2 at Globe Life Park.

But it is, hopefully for the Rangers, a sign that two big pieces of the offensive nucleus have begun to straighten out their issues at the plate.

“Last year, we were banging for a while and now we’re kind of the ones doing the slow rise so it’s all good,” Fielder said of he and Moreland. “It’s going to make us better players and better people because at the end it’ll be glorious. After this, nothing else can worry us anymore.”

Make of that what you will.

Before he met with the media in the clubhouse after Sunday’s game he had to deal with a couple of half-pint hecklers throwing insults in his face. Moreland’s two young boys peppered him with questions on topics ranging from his clothing, his tattoos and the cleats he no longer wears stored high up on a shelve in his locker. They were waiting for their dad to return from showering and Fielder was doing his best at something of a 20 question back and forth interrogation. They asked about his pants, his boots, his shirt and Fielder was enjoying the cute conversation. He was, that is, until the rascals started telling him his boots were dirty. Then his pants. They giggled as only mischievous little boys can giggle. And Fielder laughed with them. His, boots, by the way, were distressed black leather ankle boots, the kind the Beatles used to wear. And they were sharp.

Fielder handled it with aplomb. Here’s three thoughts after Sunday’s win, including more on Fielder finding his mojo:

1. Fielder’s zen — Fielder spoke honestly about learning to handle hitting slumps after the game. He acknowledged feeling some frustration earlier in the season after struggling to catch fire with the bat. He hit his third homer of the season Sunday, 34 games since his last, the longest homerless stretch of his career. More concerning for Fielder, however, was the batting average, which has drooped below .200 for much of the first two months. After going 1 for 4 Sunday he sits at .197. In the nine full seasons in which he played, he never was hitting below .267 on May 29. And he’s never hit below .261 for any of his complete seasons in the big leagues. He’s tried to temper his frustration during the slow start, and instead, employ a long view perspective on the season. That means choosing to find the silver lining in an 0 for 5 night that may include a couple outs he hit on the screws.

He had to remind himself to get back to “just playing the game of baseball.”

“And not necessarily searching for a hit, actually playing baseball. That’s the hard part when you’re struggling,” he said. “You want to help the team so badly you forget to just play baseball first. I think that’s helped me.”

He has, it seems, taken a zen approach to snapping himself out his slump.

“In my quest at becoming an adult, as far as baseball goes, I’m trying to see that as a positive, whether I get a hit or not,” he said. “Finding the positive out of everything. This is good for me. This is something at the end of the year I can really feel glorious about, the fact that I turned it around and became an adult and stuck through it.”

3. Warm-wishes from an old friend — Matt Bush and David Freese haven’t seen each other in years. They played together for the Padres’ Class A teams in Fort Wayne, Ind., and Lake Elsinore, Calif. Of course, the game took them in separate directions, Freese to the Cardinals and Bush to the Tampa Bay Rays before personal issues landed Bush in prison for two years. When Freese grounded out against Bush for the third out in the seventh Sunday, he grabbed Bush for a quick word near first base.

Freese wanted to tell Bush that he was happy to see his turnaround and that he was proud of him.

“We were pretty good friends,” Bush said. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to him or see him in a very long time but that was very nice of him, even during the game.”

Freese, who was booed by Rangers fans each time he stepped up to the plate for you-know-what (look it up!), wanted Bush to know he was happy for him before the teams went their separate ways.

“David has always been a really good guy and a great teammate,” said Bush, who has seen a few former teammates since joining the club two weeks ago. “It has been nice to see a few of those guys, David included. It’s a pretty cool thing to see some of my former teammates.”

Bush pitched a perfect inning Sunday. He has nine strikeouts and has allowed one earned run in  9 2/3 innings in the big leagues.

3. You can go home again — Derek Holland pitches the opener against the Indians Monday in Cleveland. The Rangers will be wearing camouflage uniforms to help pay tribute to veterans on Memorial Day. That special for Holland because he has family who served in the armed forces.

“You get to represent the veterans for what they’ve done, it’s an honor to represent them. The real heroes,” he said. Holland also likes pitching in Cleveland. He’s 3-0 at Progressive Field, which is about 90 minutes from where he grew up in Newark, Ohio. He’ll have about 30 friends and family on hand to watch him pitch Monday.

“You’re excited to be back and see friends and family and everybody else. It’s a cool feeling,” he said. “I feel more comfortable there than I have any where else just because I’m at home. It’s like coming back to your house for the first time in a long time, it’s just one of those good feelings.”

This story was originally published May 30, 2016 at 12:31 AM with the headline "Rangers reaction on a day the nucleus was positively charged."