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7/25 - 8/01

The Rangers had their best week in a long, long time, playing six games against good teams and splitting them. Just let that sink in for a minute.

Okay. The good news is they won a series against the Yankees. The bad news is, describing the Yankees as "good" is probably overdoing it. They're a mediocre team. And this was the first series win since June 27 - 29 against Minnesota. But still, things are better! Baby steps...

The following table contains the AL West teams' records for this week and how many games they made up or lost against the leader, Oakland.

Now that Texas is without a doubt not in the playoff race and is, in fact, one of the worst teams in Major League Baseball, let us look at the reverse standings. This is obviously pretty important. The worse the Rangers are, the better draft position they'll have. Also they will be allowed to spend more on draft picks and foreign players.

IMG

Games:

With the exception of Wednesday night's barn burner against the Yanks, the offense was very quiet. The pitching had two bad games, a "meh" game, and a few good ones.

IMG

Team Hitting and Pitching:

On the whole, the hitting was astronomically better than it was last week. The pitching was much worse. When all is said and done the team posted 1.4 WAR this week compared to 0.6 WAR last time around.

IMG

Individual Hitting (10 PA Min):

Holy shit, JC Arencibia. He led the team in hitting this week. Elvis Andrus was a pretty close second while Beltre and Rios had great weeks of their own. Jim Adduci was good as well. The same cannot be said for Choo, Chirinos, Martin, and most disappointingly, Roogie (who was terrific last week). It would appear that Chirinos and Martin were simply unlucky, posting good line drive and walk rates but low BABIPs.

IMG

Starting Rotation:

The only pitcher who really pitched well this week was Jerome Williams of all people. He had a legit start. Lewis and Darvish were also fine but they allowed a couple homers each. Tepesch did as well but was otherwise passable. Nick Martinez and Miles Mikolas were predictably not very good. But everyone except for Mikolas pulled their weight as far as innings pitched goes. Darvish and Lewis both completed 7 IP. Williams and Tepesch got through 6 innings, and Martinez pitched into the sixth. Innings are important.

IMG

Bullpen:

The bullpen wasn't very good this week, but bullpens are subject to a lot of variance.

IMG

Conclusions:

I don't really know what to say when the team's two best performers of the week (Arencibia and arguably Jerome Williams) are guys who probably shouldn't be wearing big league uniforms. I guess stuff like that happens sometimes. But I was impressed with the fight this team showed this week, particularly in the 11-12 loss. While I can understand playing for a draft pick, you do not want a malaise setting in with this team. You do not want losing to become acceptable. I may be a numbers guy but I am a human and as such I recognize that psychology plays a big part in success and failure.

I will end with a couple predictions:

1. Much like last year, Elvis Andrus will go on a tear during the second half. It began this week. He'll end up having a very solid season and will silence those who are complaining about his contract and calling for the Rangers to trade him.

2. Colby Lewis is back. He's gotten stronger, his command has improved, and he's going to be back next season on the cheap as a solid middle/back of the rotation type of guy.