Thursday Morning Links

Morning, all!

Max Scherzer is still trying to knit his torn teres major muscle back together with the magic of friendship and his fiery competitive spirit, and through a more intense bullpen session Wednesday. His next step will be to see how he feels and maybe start facing live batters, and maybe if the Rangers go deeper in the playoffs he might start a game.

Speaking of injured pitchers, Jon Gray may not be on the Rangers playoff roster, but he did win the 2023 Bob Feller Act of Valor award and is the Rangers’ nominee for the 2023 Roberto Clemente award.

Fangraphs has a post up about the playoff teams and how they fare by defense metrics, with Rangers ranking third among MLB teams behind the Brewers and Blue Jays.

Nathan Eovaldi and Evan Carter led the charge as the Rangers completed a sweep of the Rays, owners of the best home record in the league, though it seems like everybody in the lineup got a piece of the action

Of course, what kind of home field advantage can you have if nobody shows up? Shortstop Taylor Walls said that the fans that showed up were pretty loud, which is like saying your 89 Civic isn’t fast but you put a badass spoiler on it.

Not only did Nathan Eovaldi and Jordan Montgomery do a lot of heavy lifting by steering the Ranger fortunes clear of both the Scylla of “leaving in a struggling starter” and the Charybdis of “turning to a sketchy bullpen,” avoiding a game 3 means Dane Dunning is available to start against Baltimore on normal rest.

Eovaldi came up big when it mattered most and showed that he’s more deserving of the Nasty Nate nickname than the comical prison rapist in Half Baked.

Evan Grant has five things to know about the Baltimore Orioles, but (spoiler alert) all five are “they are a mere speedbump on the road to Rangers victory.”

Kevin Sherrington says that magical things happen in baseball, that the playoffs reward teams that get hot at the right time, and maybe Dane Dunning, Jordan Montgomery, and Nathan Eovaldi are hot at the right time.

Evan Carter is hot right now and is going to be hot for the rest of his career because he’s awesome.

Although, it’s worth noting that Josh Jung is also young and awesome and doing awesome baseball things.

Adolis Garcia talked some smack to friend and fellow Cuban Randy Arozarena before Wednesday’s game and then backed it up by going yard.