Tuesday Morning Rangers Update

Things are pretty quiet on the Rangers front with the team having an off day yesterday and the Mavericks dominating the Texas sports news. Regardless, there's a couple of links from people who still remember the American League Champions.

Evan Drellich of MLB.com previews the Rangers upcoming series with the Yankees. The opener matches CC Sabathia and Alexi Ogando in a battle of third-of-season Cy Young contenders. Also, Drellich reports that the injury Derek Jeter sustained yesterday might keep him out for this series which would allow the Rangers to miss Jeter 3,000th hit mania.

Apparently, Elvis Andrus and other Rangers were looking forward to watching Jeter's 3,000th hit up close and personal, writes Richard Durrett of ESPN Dallas.

Behind the DMN Paywall, Evan Grant has a piece of Alexi Ogando's workload and how the Rangers will keep tabs to make sure they don't over-work their first-time starter on the way to his Cy Young award.

With the bullpen recently improving but still giving up too many runs, Durrett looks at some of the options that might be available in the trade market that was compiled by Buster Olney.

Grant has a couple of notes about Matt Harrison's left arm after getting drilled by a comebacker on his final pitch Sunday and more information about this little detail:

The top three ERAs in the Class A Carolina League - and four of the top six - belong to Rangers' draft picks.

The DMN has a reposted article from Tyler Kepner of the New York Times about the rumored division realignment that is possibly in the cards. Kepner mentions the possibility of the Astros moving to the AL West because of a perceived rivalry that simply doesn't exist and/or abolishing the divisions altogether and just having the top four or five teams in each league qualify for the playoffs.

Of course, without divisions and division races, the crazy-long baseball regular season becomes practically pointless to follow and stomps out all division rivalry. Sure, that's what baseball needs.

T.R. Sullivan continues his celebration of the Rangers' 50th season as a franchise with a piece on the Top 50 best individual seasons in Senators/Rangers history. I was actually surprised by his pick for #1.

Finally, Jeff Wilson writes about the 23-inning affair between the Rangers' Class A affiliate Myrtle Beach and Kinston Indians which was the longest game in Carolina League history. Kasey Kiker was, of course, the losing pitcher.