Thoughts on a 4-1 Rangers win

Rangers 4, A's 1

• The A's are the best team in baseball right now, and the Rangers are the worst team in baseball right now.  So of course, the Rangers won this game handily, because that's the sort of thing that happens in baseball.  Even the worst team in the league is going to win a third of their games.
• Jerome Williams, recently signed to a minor league deal after being released by the Astros, was called up for a spot start today after Nick Tepesch got pushed back after pitching in that ridiculous extra inning game in New York earlier this week.  The Rangers were supposedly interested in Williams this offseason, before he signed with the Astros, so it isn't surprising they'd sign him to a minor league deal, nor is it all that surprising they'd turn to him for a spot start.  What is surprising is that Williams responded with a 6 IP, 1 runs outing that featured 4 Ks and just 5 hits allowed.  The A's were making solid contact off of him, but the solid contact generally found gloves, and now I'm wondering if the Rangers might decide to keep him around for a bit, rather than DFA'ing him tomorrow (as I was expecting).
• Roman Mendez and Ryan Feierabend combined for a scoreless 7th inning, and Mendez now has thrown 10 shutout innings to start off his career.  A Jerome Williams/Roman Mendez/Ryan Feierabend combo is not what we were expecting to see roll out there this summer in a game against the A's.
• Things did go as we thought, in February, they might go in the 8th and 9th, with Neal Cotts and Neftali Feliz closing things out.  It was Feliz's first save opportunity since that fateful game in St. Louis almost three years ago, and he wasn't exactly sharp, allowing a hit and a walk, but he was good enough to pick up his first save of the year.
• The final out of the game came in an entertaining fashion, with Derek Norris pulling a hard-hit ball that glanced off the glove of first baseman J.P. Arencibia.  There were runners on first and second and two out, and once the ball hit off JPA, I was bracing myself for the go-ahead run to be coming to the plate.  But Rougned Odor made a play on the carom and threw to Neftali Feliz, who was running to first.  Feliz just barely nipped Norris for the final out of the game.  This is just further proof that, in 2014, nothing can be easy.
• The Rangers didn't have a ton of hits today, but they bunched them together.  The 7-8-9 spots in the order were a combined 0 for 9 with no walks, but the top four spots were 7 for 15 with a walk -- Shin-Soo Choo, Elvis Andrus and Adrian Beltre all went 2 for 4, while Adrian Beltre Alex Rios went 1 for 3 with a walk.  Jim Adduci chipped in a double and J.P. Arencibia had both a walk and an RBI single -- yeah, I'm amazed, too.
• There was discussion in the Game Day Thread about why we watch this team play in such a miserable season, and whether we should be rooting for the team to win, or to lose (and thus enhance their draft position).  While logically, it would be great to have the #1 overall pick next June, I find it hard to take solace in the Rangers losing right now...even if it is Jerome Williams on the mound, with J.P. Arencibia and Jim Adduci hitting in the middle of the order, it feels good to win.