Hapless Rangers

After watching this 4 game sweep of Texas I can only think of one word to describe the Rangers- hapless. Not to take anything away from what we did over these last 4 days, but the results are just as much a product of what we put on the field, as they are what the Texas Rangers put on the field. And it’s been the same thing year after year.

The Rangers always manage to put together an impressive collection of bats, but never have any pitching. You would think that sooner or later someone over there would figure out that it’s all about pitching and start trying to acquire some, but it just never seems to happen. Every year it’s the same thing, they batter their way through the schedule, and try to outslug their opponent, and more times then not they find themselves on the losing end, whether it be because the starter was terrible, the bullpen was terrible, or they were all terrible.

Nice to see Buchholz go 6 today, after only making it through 3.2 in his last outing. Even though Wakefield gave up 5 runs on Sunday, he was throwing strikes and he gave the pen a much-needed break by making it through eight. In the first 21 games of the season we’ve only had two starts that have made it into the eighth inning, Wakefield’s start on Sunday and Beckett’s start on Thursday, in which he also completed eight.

We need more outings like that from all of our pitchers. Buchholz has yet to get into the seventh inning and both Dice-K and Lester have yet to get out of the seventh inning, with too many of those outings not making it out of the fifth or sixth inning. If we keep going like that, we’re not going to have any bullpen left in July, never mind September/October.

I know it’s still early and these guys are still building up stamina, but most of the problems are stemming from the fact that they're throwing too many pitches and not that they're getting gassed too early. And this has been a problem for both Dice-K and Lester all along. These guys need to start throwing more strikes and they need to start doing it soon.

But hey, despite all of that, we’re in first place in the AL East and we’re the first team to 14 wins in the Major Leagues. Big Papi is coming around, Beckett is shaping up, the bullpen is rounding out and the offense is clicking on all cylinders. It’s all good in Red Sox Nation in April.