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Friday a.m. things

By Adam J. Morris

A nice win last night. The Rangers have played .500 ball over their last six games. You have to look for the silver linings where you can, you know...

Evan Grant's game story focuses on Kam Loe and the changes he decided he needed to make to his approach. Ron Washington explains why Loe succeeded yesterday:

"He was a different pitcher tonight," manager Ron Washington said. "He was different because he got his secondary stuff over and he trusted it. He threw his sinker and trusted it. He was finishing pitches off and he was making pitches when he had to."

Grant talks about the discussions Loe had with Andy Hawkins and Mark Redman in Oklahoma about his mechanics and his approach...good stuff in there that you usually don't see in a game story. Check it out.

In the meantime, Thad Levine acknowledges the Rangers have been talking to other teams about trades. There is also this from Levine, on Jason Botts:

With Sammy Sosa on the roster, however, the Rangers don't have a need yet for another DH, which is how the Rangers view Botts.

"When we bring him up, we want him to get regular at-bats," Levine said. "He needs to continue to perform, and he's doing a great job of that. But when we put him in there, we want to put him in with a chance to perform on a regular basis. We need to have the proper opportunity."

Okay...this is starting to really piss me off.

I get that you don't want Botts to come up and just sit on the bench and start once or twice a week, the way he was used last year the last few weeks he was up.

But, you know, after this week's games in the National League parks, you've got the DH back. You can play Wilkerson at first base, Botts at DH, and let Cat, Lofton, Byrd and Diaz handle the outfield slots. That seems like the perfect way to allocate playing time.

But you can't do that if you are going to keep Sammy Sosa on the roster. You can't do that if you are committed to Sosa as your regular DH. And at this point of the season, with Sosa having a 618 June OPS after a 733 May OPS, there's no reason for him to be blocking Botts.

After this weekend's games, the Rangers need to call up Botts, DFA Sosa, and take whatever they can get for him. If they can't get anything for him, then release him.

Dave Sessions calls the upcoming Rangers/Reds series the "Bizarro World Series," as the two teams with the worst records face off.

And Jan Hubbard says it isn't the Gold Club, it is bad pitching.