9 games to go, and an off day yesterday, so not a lot Rangers related out there this morning.
Evan Grant discusses the fact that the Rangers have used 55 players this season, a team record, and notes that part of that is because the "build from within" movement is starting to pay off.
Jeff Wilson has a piece on Brandon McCarthy and the "freakish" injuries he's suffered since coming to Texas.
And Randy Galloway has a column on Nolan Ryan's plans for the direction of the Rangers, with some interesting quotes:
For those of us who think it also should be firing time in Texas, all Ryan would say Thursday was, "I’m currently formulating a plan for next season, and once the final decision has been made, we will move forward from that."
Ryan also added this:
"I can guarantee one thing. We are going to change the way things have been done around here."
* * *
Ryan, always an honest type, has admitted his name didn’t carry the clout on the Rangers baseball side that most of us would assume. Go back to March, at the spring training complex in Arizona, and Nolan gathered the entire staff of minor league pitching coaches and instructors, telling them he wanted a coddling of pitchers (in such areas as conditioning and pitch counts) to stop immediately.
"Before we can improve our pitching, we have to change the mentality. We are not grooming pitchers to be mentally and physically tough," said Ryan. "I wanted that change to begin this season in the minors."
And the result of what he asked for in Surprise?
"Not good," said Ryan. "Most of them basically ignored me, and kept doing things the way they were being done."
When it comes to pitching, how does anyone not listen to Nolan bleeping Ryan?
As of next month, however, when there will be no more benevolent Nolan, he told me this a couple of weeks ago in a radio show interview:
"Those who didn’t follow the plan, or don’t want to follow it in the future, I would suggest they look for work in other organizations."