Thursday a.m. Rangers stuff

That was pretty awful last night. Of course, Texas is still 5.5 games up in the A.L. West, and still has the best record in the A.L. (second best in the majors), so I'm not going to fret too much.

T.R. Sullivan's game story has quotes from Derek Holland on how frustrating last night's loss was.

Anthony Andro's game story notes that the Rangers were pretty bad across the board last night.

Jeff Wilson's game story talks about the things Holland did right yesterday, which included shaving his "silly mustache" and making it to the ballpark without getting lost.

Richard Durrett has his "Rapid Reaction" to last night's game.

Gerry Fraley has his observations from yesterday's game.

Joey Matches writes about Derek Holland's awful night last night, and what it says, and what it doesn't say, about Holland as a starter.

Perhaps the most bothersome thing to me last night was what Holland did right before he was pulled. He'd given up 8 runs, with six of them coming after two were out, and the game was pretty well gone, but there's no long man in the bullpen now and the Rangers were in a position where they needed Holland to give them some innings. Instead, after the Jesus Montero home run, Holland walked Justin Smoak and then Alex Liddi, with the final pitch to Liddi being nowhere near the strike zone, and Holland looking with those two batters like he had given up. Ron Washington came and got him, Yoshinori Tateyama -- who shouldn't be facing lefties ever, and is really pretty much a righthanded specialist -- then came in as the sacrificial lamb and was crushed.

Watching Holland fall apart in the second had me thinking back to Yu Darvish's first start. He had the awful first inning, things were going south, but he held it together, fought through it, battled back, and gave the Rangers innings. People still talk about how Holland is young, but he turns 26 in October -- he and Darvish are the same age, with Darvish being less than 2 months older. Darvish has much better stuff than Holland does, so maybe it is unfair to compare them...but watching how Darvish has reacted in the face of adversity, and comparing it to the way Holland did yesterday, and has in the past, provides a striking contrast.

Jeff Wilson writes about Nolan Ryan's influence on Roy Oswalt ending up a Ranger.

Behind the paywall, Tim Cowlishaw says that the Rangers still lack an ace.

Sullivan's notes talk about the game plan for Roy Oswalt, Elvis Andrus getting a day off, and Neftali Feliz's track back.

The S-T's notes talk about Feliz and Josh Hamilton.