For the Texas Rangers to win in October, they have to get real about this key player
It is late July, and the Texas Rangers have played too well for too long not to look ahead with a more discerning eye at their future.
It’s late July, and the team down south refuses to go away, even if “bang garbage cans” is no longer a part of the game plan.
The loss of Jacob deGrom to a season-ending injury is eventually going to be a major problem for the Rangers. In the post season.
The Rangers are going to make the postseason. Best to start making plans for it now.
The Major League Baseball trade deadline is Aug. 1, and the club must determine if they are good with what they have in their starting rotation.
Can the Rangers trust Martin Perez for five to six effective innings in a start during a playoff series? The same can be asked of starter Andrew Heaney.
The answer is the same to both questions: Uhhh, sure?
On Sunday against the L.A. Dodgers, Perez rebounded from a horrible first inning to pitch the Rangers to an 8-4 win at Globe Life Mall.
Perez allowed a first-inning Grand Slam to Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy, and looked like he may not make it to the second inning.
He did. Perez pitched five straight scoreless innings and the Rangers did what they always do for Martin Perez: Score.
“Great job by Martin. For him to regroup, to bounce back like that and shut them out the next five innings says a lot about who he is,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said after the game. “He gave us a great effort. Because of him we won that game.”
Hard to argue with anything the manager said.
That Perez could rebound from such a wretched first inning to come back and shut down a lineup as deep as the Dodgers for five straight innings is not an accident.
“I was just trying to stay in the game,” Perez said. “We have been doing this for so many years. I was trying not to get mad, or frustrated, in that moment.”
As a veteran, he knows the value to all of this. The same goes for his manager, general manager, and pitching coach.
In a big game, these qualities are invaluable. But are they enough?
Against the Dodgers, Perez allowed four runs on six hits with two walks and six strikeouts.
It’s worth noting that Perez continues to receive the highest run support of any starting pitcher in the American League.
“Those things are hard to figure out,” Bochy said. “For some reason we do score when he’s out there. That’s a good thing when a pitcher has that karma.”
Perez is a big part of a first-place rotation, which is fine in the regular season. The concern is the postseason.
With a little more than two months remaining in the season, the postseason is now on the forefront of this club’s mind. As it should be.
There is no greater truth serum for a big-league team than a playoff series; rotations shrink, and pitchers who were asked to carry either starts, or middle innings, suddenly are ignored.
It’s why pitchers such as the recently-acquired Aroldis Chapman keep working. A manager trusts the big strikeout guy.
At 6-feet, 200 pounds, Perez is not a big strikeout guy.
He’s a reliable starter who can be trusted to pitch every fifth day, and give his team a chance to win. In a 162-game season, those qualities are in demand.
He’s in his 12th major league season, but what he did last season for the Rangers is an outlier. Last season, Perez was 12-8 in 32 starts with a 2.89 ERA in 196 1/3 innings.
He was an All-Star for the first time in his career. Counting on him to repeat that season again is a lot.
His pitching line on Sunday is in the neighborhood of his starts since the beginning of May. Some pretty good with some pretty not good.
This season, his ERA is inching closer to 5.00. He has never been an over-powering pitcher. Perez has always been in the “crafty lefty” mold who relies more on location than velocity.
It can’t be said loudly enough that the Rangers are not in first place in the American League West without Martin Perez.
The win on Sunday ended a nine-game home stand against the first-place Guardians, first-place Rays and first-place Dodgers; the Rangers finished with a 7-2 record.
Other than the first two games of the series against the Dodgers, where the Rangers lost by the combined score of 27-8, it’s hard to be too whiny about this home stand.
But the Rangers have come too far to be still. The Rangers have won too many games. The Rangers have spent too much money to just be satisfied with a playoff appearance.
They have hard decisions to make, starting with whether they feel they can trust their starting rotation as is in a playoff series.
This story was originally published July 23, 2023 at 4:53 PM.
