I'm wondering if we should really be surprised that the Rangers are sitting at 5-9 after 14 games.
In Ron Washington's 4 seasons as Ranger manager, they've never had a .500 record 14 games into the season. They've been 5-9 twice, and 6-8 twice.
Last year, the Rangers won their first three games, then lost 7 of 8 and, after dropping to 3-4, didn't get back to .500 until the 20th game of the season, when they got back to 10-10.
In 2008, the Rangers were 5-4 9 games into the season, then lost 5 in a row, won 2 in a row, and then lost 7 more in a row to go to 7-16, and lead to the rumored firing of Ron Washington that didn't happen because it was his birthday.
In 2007, the Rangers were 5-5, then lost 5 of 6 and 13 of 18 to drop to 10-18.
It is a weird trend. In three of Ron Washington's seasons as manager, the Rangers have been .500 after 10 games. In the other season, they were 4-6.
And in each of his first three seasons, and so far in his fourth season, the team went south very quickly thereafter, suffering from significant losing streaks in the middle of April that dropped the team significantly below .500 early in the season.
Ron Washington's Rangers have basically spent all of the third and fourth weeks of the season below .500.
And I think this is what we are talking about when we talk about Washington's Rangers getting out to bad starts. It isn't that they fall on their faces out of the gate...every year, they have played .500 ball for a week or two coming out of spring training, and then go into a tailspin until the end of April.
And the 2010 Ranger team is following that pattern to a tee.
I don't get it.