It is that time of year.
The Rangers are out of the playoff hunt, and the Cowboys training camp has opened.
So for the rest of the way, barring more chair-throwing or photographer-assaulting or some sort of public meltdown by Hicks or Hart, the DFW media is likely going to be ignoring the Rangers.
Personally, I'd like to be able to ignore RicRod's awful outing last night. I don't know what was wrong with him, but in the DMN today, it sounds like Showalter is ready to ship him out to make room for another reliever.
It would be a stupid, stupid decision, but if there's anything we've learned by now, it is that young players don't have much margin for error with this regime. Rodriguez has struggled of late, but as I talked about yesterday, the Rangers need to spend the rest of the season getting a read on whether he's someone who can be counted on for the rotation next season, or someone who can be lost on waivers. Sending Rodriguez down to the minors might help the bullpen for the next day or two, but it is going to hurt the team over the long-term.
Unfortunately, when the manager is the one who is calling the shots, long-term benefits generally get shunted aside for short-term gain, even in a lost season like this one.
Also, according to T.R. Sullivan in the S-T today, the Rangers passed on Matt Clement because they couldn't afford both him and Soriano:
Matt Clement pitches against the Rangers tonight. He might have been pitching for the Rangers if they had been able to trade Alfonso Soriano during the off-season.
"They called right before I was ready to sign," Clement said. "They asked if I'd be interested, and I said yes. I wanted to go to a team that could score some runs, and they have a potent offense. We told them we were going to decide in three or four days, and that must not have fit their timetable because we never got an offer."
The Rangers didn't pursue it because a possible trade with the Houston Astros involving Soriano fell through.
Now, where are all those folks who insisted that the Rangers didn't spend money this offseason, not because they didn't want to spend money, but because there was no one worth spending it on?
How does that jibe with the notion that the Rangers couldn't pursue Clement because they couldn't trade Soriano?