Seems like just yesterday we were a strike away from a Championship... Or the ink had just dried on the contracts that locked up Yu Darvish, Matt Harrison, Derek Holland and Martin Perez through 2017 as one of the best young rotations in all of baseball.
And now here we are rolling out a Opening Day rotation of Holland, Gallardo, Colby Lewis, Ross Detwiler and Nick Martinez. *sigh*.
But, new season... and while no one projects this team to finish higher than 3rd in the division, with the addition of the gimmicky 2nd wild card you can be a 0.500 team on September 1st and still have a chance of making the playoffs.
So there's hope -- just stay around a 0.500 team and then hope the baseball gods show mercy on us for the first time in years. Honestly I just want to still be playing meaningful baseball in August... I can't deal with being 10 games back by mid-June.
My simple gameplan on how we can get there:
Need Fielder/Beltre to absolutely rake and the the tables to be set (Choo/Andrus/Rougie) for the first month and a half of the season where it's division-heavy. Holland and Gallardo both need to pitch one-slot up (Holland as #1, Gallardo as a #2), with the back 3 of the rotation just keeping us in games.
Build one of those smoke-and-mirror division leads through mid-May (like Milwaukee did last year), and tread water for the rest of May and June, winding up +- 3 games of the division lead on July 1.
Longshot, but hopefully Perez or Harrison become Six-Million-Dollar-Men who have come back stronger and we can add one of them to the rotation for the final 3 months of the regular season.
Use that still very strong farm system to deal for a piece (arm or bat) that is more than a rental and hope the team can get hot down the stretch.
Yes, I realize there's more of a chance of Texas being 10 games out by mid-June again, but hope springs eternal.
Get it started tomorrow night with Gallardo gaining some confidence against what should be a light-hitting Oakland offense and lets see Fielder show he's back to his previous form against Gray, who went 2-7 down the stretch for Oakland, contributing greatly to that division collapse.
And now here we are rolling out a Opening Day rotation of Holland, Gallardo, Colby Lewis, Ross Detwiler and Nick Martinez. *sigh*.
But, new season... and while no one projects this team to finish higher than 3rd in the division, with the addition of the gimmicky 2nd wild card you can be a 0.500 team on September 1st and still have a chance of making the playoffs.
So there's hope -- just stay around a 0.500 team and then hope the baseball gods show mercy on us for the first time in years. Honestly I just want to still be playing meaningful baseball in August... I can't deal with being 10 games back by mid-June.
My simple gameplan on how we can get there:
Need Fielder/Beltre to absolutely rake and the the tables to be set (Choo/Andrus/Rougie) for the first month and a half of the season where it's division-heavy. Holland and Gallardo both need to pitch one-slot up (Holland as #1, Gallardo as a #2), with the back 3 of the rotation just keeping us in games.
Build one of those smoke-and-mirror division leads through mid-May (like Milwaukee did last year), and tread water for the rest of May and June, winding up +- 3 games of the division lead on July 1.
Longshot, but hopefully Perez or Harrison become Six-Million-Dollar-Men who have come back stronger and we can add one of them to the rotation for the final 3 months of the regular season.
Use that still very strong farm system to deal for a piece (arm or bat) that is more than a rental and hope the team can get hot down the stretch.
Yes, I realize there's more of a chance of Texas being 10 games out by mid-June again, but hope springs eternal.
Get it started tomorrow night with Gallardo gaining some confidence against what should be a light-hitting Oakland offense and lets see Fielder show he's back to his previous form against Gray, who went 2-7 down the stretch for Oakland, contributing greatly to that division collapse.