Thursday Morning Links

In Jeff Wilson's postgame story, we learn that Nelson Cruz has been using a performance enhancing deity, as he says that he is not worried about the MLB investigation because he has God on his side. T.R. Sullivan focuses on Ron Washington picking every single pitcher out of the trust tree last night and Nellie Cruz actually playing like a player we would miss in a fifty game suspension. Matt Ehalt at ESPN Dallas has his rapid reactions, noting, among other things, that Engel Beltre had an auspicious major league debut by running into an out and that Justin Grimm has been awarded the Roger Pavilik Memorial Wins are Meaningless Plaque.

Jeff Wilson has a notes column wherein we learn that Ron Washington has been riding the bullpen pretty hard in June and is looking forward to doing doughnuts and burnouts all over Joakim Soria's surgically repaired arm. Also, Leonys Martin said he "is confident that someone else is confident" in his playing ability, got caught in an infinite recursion and crashed to blue screen.

Apparently, the organization would like Yu Darvish to make some adjustments in response to his seven game winless streak, though I learned in Star Trek: Voyager that the temporal prime directive prohibits him from going back in time and stopping himself from throwing 130 pitches on May 16.

T.R. Sullivan's notes column says that Ron Washington thinks Yu Darvish is going to have to make some changes, Profar has been working out in the outfield but is not yet ready to play there, and Ogando threw a bullpen session but is still not at 100%.

Evan Grant tells us that Leonys Martin is on a hot streak right when the Rangers need him to be, Ron Washington saying that Yu Darvish needs to make some changes, and that Joey Gallo and Jorge Alfaro have been named to the Futures Games.

Matt Ehalt notes that the middle of the order has actually been performing like a middle of the order lately, and has a notes post that discusses Profar not being ready to play in the outfield and Derek Holland having had some awful games at Yankee Stadium.

Todd Wills tells us that Adam is right and all of his Twitter trolls are stupid knuckleheads because this team sucks without Ian Kinsler.

Finally, I cannot pick one single thing that I love most about this video... is it the obvious fact that the dog is freaking awesome? Is it the fact that the wheelchair-bound flood victim appears to be so irritated at being filmed? I have no idea, but everything from their lovable tyrannical kleptocrat to the fact that their drunken shenanigans and corrupt public institutions led to a phenomenon that provided science with a perfect visual record of an astronomical event leads me to believe that Russia may be my favorite country..