Monday Morning Rangers Update

Our long national nightmare is over. Albert Pujols has hit a home run. Now we can go back to worrying about Vernon Wells.

Or, since this is a Rangers blog, we can continue worrying about these May Rangers.

T.R. Sullivan has a recap of the Rangers loss in Cleveland yesterday. Yu Darvish was good--he struggled with throwing strikes all day--but not great. He needed to be great for the Rangers to win. The defense and Adrian Beltre-less offense did him no favors.

Bryan Dolgin has the Rapid Reaction to the Rangers 4-2 loss.

Behind the DMN paywall, Evan Grant writes about the Rangers missing Adrian Beltre's bat.

Jeff Wilson recaps the game while focusing on all the aspects that turned the game into another loss in a 1-4 start to May. The salad days of being gauche may have come to an end too soon.

Anthony Andro writes that, even in his first loss as a Major League pitcher, Darvish looked like an ace.

Grant has a blog post up about Ron Washington considering giving Nelson Cruz a day off for being terrible recently. For the month, Cruz is 2-22 with four strikeouts including three yesterday. As Grant notes, Cruz is hitting .160 since the Detroit series. I hate the phrase "looks lost at the plate" but if it applies to anyone, it applies to Cruz right now.

Sullivan has some notes on Mike Napoli getting a day off yesterday, an Adrian Beltre update, and various other items.

Wilson also has notes with his covering Matt Harrison looking to bounce back after discovering a flaw in his delivery, Elvis hitting well away from The Ballpark, and a look at the surprising Baltimore Orioles.

Finally, speaking of those Orioles, Durrett writes about former Ranger Chris Davis having a crazy day yesterday.