Silent Dunning

 

So earlier I said that the Pirates are in third place by default, and I don't think it's all that controversial to say. I don't think the Pirates are competitive enough to really do anything in third, and they're really there because the two teams below them are just worse. However, a similar issue seems to be at play in the AL West, where the Angels and Mariners, who are good teams with terrible recent luck, have given up second while the Rangers, who are a fairly alright team, are sitting there virtually unopposed. 

On one hand, it's hard not to see how we got to this outcome. The Rangers have been very okay this year, and have gone through both hot streaks and cold streaks as the season's gone on. The Angels famously had a long cold streak, and the Mariners fell apart around May. Because they've lost more at a time, and have taken longer to get back up, they've dropped below a fairly steady mid-tier team. And so I do get it, the Rangers, the way the Angels and Mariners have been playing, are, in fact, a 2nd place team.

Now, will they be one at the end of the season? Probably not.

It's sort of an odd picture right now. The pieces this team added prior to the season are beginning to pay off. Corey Seager and Adolis Garcia have combined to make a pretty strong power battery at the top of the lineup, Marcus Semien is slowly beginning to heat up, and Martin Perez has been a surprise success in his return to Arlington. The youth has began to let this team down. Even after getting rid of Willie Calhoun, we had people like Eli White, Steele Walker and Josh Smith make it up to the bigs, start playing well, and immediately land on the IL. Josh Smith was giving me franchise 3rd base vibes and now he's on the IL. Ezequiel Duran, former Yankee prospect who came over for Joey Gallo, has posted great numbers in his first 11 games, but is HE next to land on the IL? 

The rotation is just this very unassuming bunch of arms that are sort of going in the right direction. Perez is nailing it, Dane Dunning is handing in a 4.04 ERA but leading the team in strikeouts with 68, and Jon Gray and Taylor Hearn are sort of moseying along behind them. When you have to throw Garrett Richards into the mix, you know it's not gonna be the most exciting affair. Thankfully nobody's pitching too terribly, and the bullpen barrage of Joe Barlow, Brock Burke, Dennis Santana and somehow Matt Moore has been very successful so far, but two years removed from the super-rotation plan, it's hard to really get Rangers fans excited about starting pitching these days.

I wanna see how the next month goes in this division. I think the Angels are gonna take 2nd place back. I could be wrong. There's a possibility that the Rangers start earning this placement, but it's gonna take a lot of things falling into place.

Coming Tomorrow- A marquee guy traded for another marquee guy before they achieved their potential. Now this guy gets to be an ace for a team who needs one.