Texas Rangers Who’s Hot? Who’s Not? Week Two

Welcome to a new weekly series, as we’ll take a look at a few Rangers who are on heaters and more who are ice cold in something we’ll call “Who’s Hot? Who’s Not?”

Two weeks into the season, and we’re ready for 2019. I mean, not really, but kinda? Look, it’s been a rough couple of weeks as the Rangers are 4-10, coming off a sweep at the hands of the Angels and to make matters worse saw their best player suffer a fractured elbow with two outs in the ninth of a blowout loss on Wednesday night. Now, Elvis Andrus is on the disabled list for the first time in his decade at shortstop, and he’s joining Rougned Odor there. Boy, what a week.

So, without further delay, let’s look at “Who’s Hot? Who’s Not?” through the season’s second week.

Who’s Hot?

Adrian Beltre — We addressed the best Ranger ever last week in the “Who’s Not” section and mentioned how he’s made a career of starting slowly before picking things up. Well, that time has come. Beltre, who turned 39 on Saturday (I know this because I turned 38 on Saturday ... #BirthdayTwins), is starting to heat up at the plate. In his last six games, he’s hitting at a .435/.519/.565 slash with three doubles, and he has four walks to go with his 10 hits. The power still hasn’t shown up yet, and with is escalating age, that might slow, but it’ll still show up soon. You can count on that.

Elvis Andrus — We’ll stick him here for the third time in as many weeks for two reasons. A) He deserves it (.308/.438/.462 slash in last seven games to go with double, homer, three RBIs and five walks), and B) It’s the last time he’ll be here for a good while after hitting the DL on Thursday for what is expected to be multiple months. I don’t remember being this sports sad in a good while.

The bullpen — If only we could go back to next year and have this bullpen. Alex Claudio and Jake Diekman haven’t been great, but the trio of Chris Martin, Kevin Jepsen, Keone Kela has combined to work 7 ²⁄₃ scoreless innings over the last week and allow just four hits.

Who’s Not?

Starting pitching — Mike Minor was really good in a win over Toronto last weekend, and now that Doug Fister is on the DL, Bartolo Colon is back in the rotation and has been pretty great this year. But let these numbers sink in for the last seven days of Cole Hamels, Martin Perez and Matt Moore, who, by his low standard, was actually decent on Wednesday night: 29 hits, 27 runs (24 earned), 13 walks, 11 strikeouts in 22 combined innings. I’m no expert, but those numbers aren’t going to win many games.

Joey Gallo — It’s been a pretty rough start to the year for the guy who, arguably, was worth the most anticipation heading into this season. After starting the year in the No. 2 spot, he’s been moved back to the bottom third of the order to try to relieve stress. One bright spot for Gallo over the last week? He does lead the team with six RBIs in that time, but everything else is brutal. Now, Gallo’s never going to be a high batting average guy, and we’re cool with that, but he’s hitting .172 in his last seven games. Where he usually makes up for it is with his on-base percentage via the walk. In that same span, he has two walks for a .226 on-base percentage. Dreadful.