Excessive Gore

 

To be at .500 and in 2nd, and ahead of your two greatest competitors in the standings, has to feel weird. Like you're there, you're accomplishing your goal...but is it earned? Are you beating yourself as much as you're beating them? The Rangers are looking decent right now, but is it because they've gotten off to a less rough start than Seattle or Houston, or are they actually on the precipice of something?

The issue of this team, since having to follow up the championship season, has been the inability for the young, homegrown core to actually inherit the team, still relying on contracted veterans like Corey Seager, Jacob deGrom and now Brandon Nimmo to do the heavy lifting. Wyatt Langford, Josh Jung and Evan Carter have flirted with greatness but injuries have prevented its consistency. Langford is once again hurt, right as he gets going. The good news is that Carter looks good, hitting a homer as I write this and letting his multi-tool ability distract from his comparatively pedestrian average. Jung's hitting .300, that's a nice start. Even Kumar Rocker's beginning to grow accustomed to MLB hitting, and has his ERA below 4. Beyond that, though, this is still a hodgepodge of acquired guns rather than a full youth movement. Which does explain why the team's development has sputtered a bit.

I do credit the Rangers for bringing on MacKenzie Gore, who's still young enough to be on the ground floor of something here. Gore is known for his high-K, high-velocity mentality, which also occasionally leads to a higher ERA. Sure enough, Gore has 35 Ks, a 1.192 WHIP...and a 4.15 ERA. Everything they figured would happen is happening. Still fits into this rotation pretty well though. I don't think Gore is gonna be the full package that the Padres were figuring when they drafted him, but he's still a handy flamethrower to have around. And then you have Jacob deGrom, still very much a viable ace, who's got a 2.29 ERA in 4 starts. I worry a bit about Evo and Leiter, but the season's young. 

Regardless, even if it's not pretty or sustainable, the runs are getting produced. Jake Burger's still an RBI machine, Seager's still the fearless captain of yore, Nimmo's having a comeback year, and Langford and Carter look confident and versatile. The team average is low, and there's a bunch of people still not hitting, but games are getting won. I think any sense of a gameplan went out the window when Bochy left, and now the Skip Schumacher approach just involves winning with what they've got by any means necessary. 

And if that works better than Bochy-ball did...it just proves that you can't really predict anything.

Coming Tomorrow- It's possible he may never live up to his Red Sox numbers, but he's still doing whatever he can to keep his team in the conversation.