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Good morning, everyone...
The Rangers lost again yesterday. Everyone panic.
Evan Grant has notes from yesterday's Cactus League defeat.
For whatever reason, I can't get stories from the Rangers website to load, so no T.R. Sullivan links today. Sorry.
Lefty reliever Joe Beimel was signed by the Rangers yesterday.
Beimel, interestingly, was drafted by the Rangers in 1996, though he didn't sign with them.
Evan Grant says the Rangers paid for Beimel's Tommy John surgery in 2012, when they signed him to a minor league deal only to stick him on the d.l. all year when he had a torn UCL, and are hoping to get some benefit from that investment now.
Stefan Stevenson has a story on Jeff Banister working with the Rangers on improving their baserunning.
Evan Grant goes into detail on what Banister wants the Rangers to be working on with their baserunning.
Banister used Yu Darvish being pulled as an opportunity yesterday to tell the team to prepare for adversity so they won't be overwhelmed by it.
Ted Madden writes that the Rangers are counting on improved starting pitching in 2015. I tweeted yesterday that, if the Rangers can get a combined 720 IP from Yu Darvish, Derek Holland, Yovani Gallardo and Colby Lewis, they will make the playoffs.
The Rangers signed 25 year old righthander Jesus Pirela, who pitched in the Mexican League last year, to a minor league deal.
Mac Engel does his best Galloway imitation in a column where he calls the Rangers Ray Davis's "toy," says the Rangers have lost all the goodwill they earned from 2009-13, and refers to Jon Daniels as "MacBeth," the protagonist in a Shakespeare play who killed the king to gain power. On the plus side, there appears to be no whining about Jackie Moore, the go-to unnamed source for those who wanted info to use against JD, being fired.
Trolls gonna troll. And I guess the FWST feels that sort of thing sells papers.
Remember when I wanted the Rangers to sign Colby Rasmus (he ended up in Houston on a one year, $8M deal)? Well, this piece makes me glad I'm not rooting for him, given his incessant whining. Rasmus, interestingly, says he is playing only four more years, and that playing baseball isn't fun anymore.
