And see I don't know if I can dislike a uniform more.

Only worse color might be pink

It really never gets old watching Elvis F with Beltre.

Edit. I love the Unis

I like the unis

Unis are awesome. I want one

Aren't these the old road unis from the early 80s?

1977 I believe

Pujols has a .670 OPS and his contract has four more years after this season at $115MM.

Are these shirts for sale somewhere other than the stadium?

I see some jerseys for sale online but they're over the top expensive. Some of these look like shirt options?

I swear that the uni's from the 70's were paler than these. But still, these are awesome.

About a 1:1 K/BB for Ross tonight. Amazing he gave up only 1 run and 4 hits.

First ever double-digit hit streak for Odor. 10 games.

DallasAg 94 said:

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Texas is back up to 5th in AL ERA for Starters
1. Houston: 3.86 ------#5 (McCullers: 3.05), #14 (Fiers: 3.80)
2. Tampa: 4.12 ------#15 (Archer: 3.95), #16 (Cobb: 4.01)
3. NYY: 4.21 ------#9 (Severino: 3.52), #12 (Montgomery: 3.65), #19 Pineda (4.39), #31 (Tanaka: 5.25)
4. Boston: 4.27 ------#2 (Sale: 2.75), #11 (Pomeranz: 3.60), #26 (Porcello: 5.01)
5. KC: 4.30 ------#1 (Vargas: 2.62), #27 (Hammel: 5.04)
5. Texas: 4.30 ------ #10 (Darvish, 3.56), #21 (Perez, 4.60)
7. Cleveland: 4.26 ------#3 (Kluber: 2.85), #8 (Carrasco: 3.44), #30 (Bauer: 5.24), #35 (Tomlin: 5.90)

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Texas is back up to 5th in AL ERA for Starters
1. Houston: 3.87
2. Tampa: 4.05
3. NYY: 4.21
4. Boston: 4.22
5. Texas: 4.27
6. KC: 4.30
7. Cleveland: 4.31

Glad I've got an AppleTV to stream Fox Sports Go down here in Houston. The rain knocked out satellite.

Is Darvish's lack of run support just pure coincidence or do the Rangers always run into the opponent's best pitcher, etc? What's going on?

Mr. White said:

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Is Darvish's lack of run support just pure coincidence or do the Rangers always run into the opponent's best pitcher, etc? What's going on?

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It's because China increased trade with N Korea

Into the ASG at 3 games under. Not what I envisioned at the start of the year

The loss today is absolutely all on the offense. Getting shut out is pretty unacceptable, and two runs from nearly 8 innings pitched by your starter is a game that you should win just about every time . Frustrating end to the first half of the year, but at this point it's just par for the course.

The bright side -- our top of the rotation starters are looking like... top of the rotation starters.

If that continues, we should stay in contention all season for the wildcard.

Yeah at this point I don't really see it being a deadline fire sale. Newberg was saying earlier this week that he saw us as neither buyers nor sellers at the deadline and I'd say that sounds about right. We have one of the best run-scoring teams in the AL and one of the best 1-2 punches at the top of our rotation, with some pretty capable arms filling out the rest of the rotation.

I know none of us wanted or expected to be 2 games below .500 at the break but this is 100% on the bullpen and early season injuries. You don't burn the whole thing down over a hole in your bullpen. My ideal trade deadline is a multi-team trade where we deal Lucroy and get a middle reliever in return. We're not catching Houston but we don't have to in order to make the postseason and make some noise.

You don't burn it down at this point but the club has some serious dead weight sitting around that's not in the bullpen.

You've got to figure out how to handle that...trading for whatever can get because why not? Further down, are you going to start the young guys after September call ups, or still play to sneak into the wildcard?

It'll be interesting to see the personnel decisions.

Mr. White said:

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Is Darvish's lack of run support just pure coincidence or do the Rangers always run into the opponent's best pitcher, etc? What's going on?

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Here are the games in which the Rangers have not scored in Darvish's games (Based on 3 or fewer Runs scored by Texas):

2. April 8 (Oak): 1 Run - Graverman (8 GS, 3.83 ERA, NQ)
4. April 18 (Oak): 2 Run - Triggs (12 GS, 4.27 ERA, NQ)
11. May 27 (Tor): 1 Run - Estrada (18 GS, 5.17 ERA, 31 in AL ERA)
12. June 2 (Hou): 1 Run - Keuchel (11 GS, 1.67 ERA, NQ)
13. June 7 (NYM): 3 Run - Wheeler (15 GS, 4.86 ERA, NQ)
15. June 18 (Sea): 3 Run - Bergman (8 GS, 5.44 ERA, NQ)
16. June 23 (NYY): 1 Run - Tanaka (18 GS, 5.47 ERA, 33 in AL ERA)
17. June 28 (Cle): 3 Runs - Bauer (17 GS, 5.24 ERA, 32 in AL ERA)
19. July 9 (LAAA): 0 Runs - Ramirez (17 GS, 4.46 ERA, 21 in AL ERA)
NQ= Not Qualified for ERA.

Aside from maybe Keuchel... it is hard to see Darvish as having faced SP of any relevance.

Leagues average ERA for SPs in AL teams is 4.55. Bolded games are those with a worse ERA than 4.55

As we bemoan our plight of being 43-45... do we buy... do we sell...

Aside from Houston being 10 games ahead of Boston, what does the AL look like? Four more teams make the playoffs in the AL

Boston (50-39)
Cleveland: 2.0 GB of Boston

NYY: 3.5 GB
Tampa: 3.5 GB

Minn: 4.5 GB
KC: 5 GB

LAAA: 6.5 GB
Texas: 6.5 GB

6.5 GB of Boston is just a short winning streak from catching them.

And we've all torn the team apart, for the blown saves. And we've piecemealed our rotation with ABD, Martinez, Ross, et al.

Banny always (both years) has the team firing in the 2nd half. We will come out blazing hot.

Taking a step back and looking at our situation, I think the big wildcard in the buy/sell decision is Adrian Beltre. He's a first ballot HOFer within a few weeks of his 3000th career hit, and the undisputed heart and soul of this team. That makes the decision to deal him extremely tough, even if it's the obvious right decision. If the front office decided to sell, he would almost certainly have to go, both to maximize returns to the club and because you aren't going to make a guy like that wallow on a tanking team for the last couple of years of his career.

Personally, I don't see us dealing him this year. The media exposure and fan enthusiasm around a guy hitting such a huge milestone is too much to give away for a few prospects. Because of that, I think they by and large keep the club together and try to make a run at the playoffs.

I think Beltre will be staying here. To me the question is Lucroy, Gomez, etc. The soon to be free agents and if you try to pick something up for them at risk of missing a one-off playoff game.

My feeling is the Rangers will be pretty quiet either way.

I don't see Beltre leaving. We might make a move or two, but not really buying or selling per se. Maybe move Lucroy for some controllable bullpen help. Moving Lucroy isn't selling, we have Nicholas to bring up to go along with Chirinos. Maybe somebody will take flyer on Profar and we can move him for some bullpen help. I can see some moves like that being make, but no fullscale "sale" type moves or buy type moves.

Then the question becomes what we can do for next year. Can we get Darvish sigend? etc. But it hurts seeing Dyson do well in SF after seemingly single handedly killing us at the start of the season. We could really use him now that he has apparently figured things out.

DallasAg 94 said:

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As we bemoan our plight of being 43-45... do we buy... do we sell...

Aside from Houston being 10 games ahead of Boston, what does the AL look like? Four more teams make the playoffs in the AL

- AL EAST Boston (50-39)
- AL CENTRAL Cleveland: 2.0 GB of Boston

- AL WC #1 NYY
- AL WC #2 Tampa

Minn: 1 GB
KC: 1.5 GB
LAAA: 3 GB
Texas: 3 GB
Seattle: 4 GB
Balt: 4 GB
Toronto: 5 GB

3 GB of Wildcard is just a short winning streak

And we've all torn the team apart, for the blown saves. And we've piecemealed our rotation with ABD, Martinez, Ross, et al.

Banny always (both years) has the team firing in the 2nd half. We will come out blazing hot.

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FIFY. Not really interested in catching anything except the WC.

I'm more interested in an AL Pennant and trip to WS. Getting a WC doesn't do it for me. We've had a 'below expectations' 1st half and Houston is really the only team out of reach.

I'm thinking they will wait to see what happens over the next two weeks. If the team tanks, you get a soft sell of Lucroy, Cashner, Gomez, and Napoli. If they stay in the race, you stand pat and hope the bullpen figures itself out. I don't expect any sort of "all in" buying.

Another thing to think about is that, although we are only 3 games back in the WC, there are still 4 teams ahead of us. Although anything can happen in the playoffs, it still might be time to call this season what it is and sell a few pieces.

Yeah I'm not expecting anyone to get moved, one way or the other. We're kind of in purgatory in the sense that we're not far enough out of the WC to sell, but we don't quite have the pieces to buy and try to make a run.

I agree with what's been said earlier, it wouldn't surprise me if Lucroy was dealt. A decent, controllable relief pitcher in return for him would be the ideal scenario in my opinion. Nicholas and Chirinos can give us about what Lucroy has this season, which is a shame but it is what it is at this point.

DallasAg 94 said:

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I'm more interested in an AL Pennant and trip to WS. Getting a WC doesn't do it for me. We've had a 'below expectations' 1st half and Houston is really the only team out of reach.

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They can catch everyone but Houston and an AL pennant and a World Series still starts with a single winner takes all wild card game against, the best you'll be able to say by the end of July, a team that probably has a similar record and probably spent much of the year with about the same record. It'll probably be a crapshoot.

So, I think just about any way you can slice it, the question is what are you willing to trade away given your season could be over in one toss-up game?

And I would suspect the answer for many is a little different now with a depleted farm system than it was when the Rangers had a deep farm system.