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Hello Win Column

Rangers Win in Darvish Trade

RANGERS WIN!!

           It might be a little too early to call who actually won the Yu Darvish trade, but screw it! I’m doubling down on my call that the Rangers won in the trade that sent our beloved Darvish to Los Angeles. I’m not just talking about the two young bucks we received down in Single-A ball, (although these two men will hopefully be top prospects soon). I’m talking about the one and only Willie Calhoun!

            This year alone, Calhoun has already smashed a total of 27 home runs of the wall while playing in Triple-A ball. 23 of these dingers came while Calhoun was sporting an O.K.C. jersey as a player in the LA Dodgers system. Since coming to the Ranger’s 3A officiate down in Round Rock, Calhoun has smashed 4 homers, including a two-run shot in the game on Sunday, August 6th game. These 27 homers have already tied his career high in home run totals.

           It sure seems like Calhoun is settling into his new team’s locker room well. Since arriving in Round Rock, Calhoun has played in six games getting a total of 25 at bats, reaching base seven times, while only striking out once. Willie has also contributed to his teams scoring attempts by bringing in eight RBIs. At the moment Calhoun is swinging his big bat with a batting average of .280, which is just a little below where he was hitting at in O.K.C. In an MLB.COM interview, Willie had this to say about his new team, “I like the atmosphere that’s in the clubhouse and all the guys are great.”

           I doubt that Calhoun will get a great chance to really settle into the clubhouse though, as I foresee the young left fielder being called up come the September roster expansion. The future sure seems bright for the Rangers number two minor league prospect. I for sure will be at the Globe when Calhoun gets his first chance to sport a Ranger red jersey in the lineup.

-Austin Clem

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Hamels Goes the Distance against the Twins

Ranges Win 4-1

Saturday, August 5, 2017

           Your Texas Rangers take the lead in this four game series against the Twins as Cole Hamels took the mound tonight giving his team a stellar performance. Hamels only gave up one run and three hits in tonight’s win. Hamels also gave up one free pass to a Twins player when he walked him but made up for it by striking out five tonight in his nine innings of work. This is Cole’s sixth win of the year bringing his record to 6-1, this is the Cole Hamels that we as fans have been waiting for since last postseason when Cole had his meltdown in game one versus the Blue Jays.

 The Ranger bats were once again alive tonight as a total of there were eight hits in the game tonight of the twins.  The team’s hot bat tonight belongs to Nomar Mazara as he launched his 14th home run into the visiting Rangers bullpen in center-field bringing in two runs, which brings his RBI totals to 68 for the season. Robinson Chirinos also had a pair of RBIs tonight, bringing his totals to 28th on the season. Carlos Gomez made an appearance in tonight’s game after being hit by a pitch he had the only Rangers stolen base of the night, Gomez’s 11th of the year.  

           The Rangers will take on the Twins again tomorrow night in the rubber game of this four game series. Taking on the Rangers will be the Twins top pitching prospect Jose Berrios who currently has a record of 9-5 and an ERA of 3.57. On the mound for the Rangers will be Nick Martinez who has a record of 3-4 with an ERA of 5.07.

 Sunday’s game will be played at 1:10 PM CT. Don’t forget it's an early one!

-Austin Clem

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Colon Smokes Rangers 8-3

Perez Struggles Continue

           Rough night for the Rangers as they played the second in a series of four against the Twins. On the mound for the Rangers was Martin Perez who stepped up with an ERA of 5.13 and a record of 5-9. Many of you Ranger fans may know that Perez has struggled as of late giving up 24 runs in the month of July and posting an ERA of 6.30. Taking on the Rangers was the long-time Ranger hatter Bartolo Colon who dressed for today’s game sporting a 1-8 record.

Offense

The Rangers came out early tonight swinging hot bats and scored two runs in the first and another run in the third inning. After that, the Ranger scoreboard put up straight zeros until a Carlos Gomez home run in the ninth inning, as the Rangers struggled to get much going offensively. There were, however, some bright spots tonight; Elvis Andrus continued to look impressive as he reached base tonight on three separate occasions, all of them doubles. Andrus currently has twenty-nine doubles this season while the league leader has thirty-three this season. Bret Nicholas also has a double in tonight’s game, his first of the season.

           Adrian Beltre went 4-1 tonight and bought a pair of runs in with his only hit of the night, those two RBIs bring his season total to 39 RBIs so far. Nomar Mazara also brought a run in tonight as he went 3-1 with a walk. That RBI brings Mazara’s total to 66 RBIs. Carlos Gomez hit a home run off of Colon in the bottom of the 9th, his 15th of the season.

Defense

           Martin Perez has had a rough season so far this season as he continues to try to find his location. In the month of July, Perez allowed 24 runs off of 38 hits and posted an ERA of 6.30. Tonight was sadly for the Rangers just more of the same from Perez as he allowed the Twins to score seven runs off of nine hits tonight. Perez only lasted 4.2 innings, allowing 3 home runs and walking two of the Twins batters. Perez has not been the same since the surgery to repair his torn ligament in 2015. Ranger fans are surely beginning to get frustrated as we wait for him to find his location and regain the control over his sinking fastball that got him to the majors at the age of 21.

Bright Spots

           The bright spot in tonight’s game was not even in the same state as the team. Looking to Round Rock, TX for the bright spot we see that Willie Calhoun the Left-hitting left fielder hit his first home run as a member of the Texas Rangers Triple-A affiliate. This defiantly might be the spark that Ranger fans need to have some confidence going into the future of the franchise.

Next Game

           Tomorrow’s game will be played a little bit earlier as the Rangers set to play game three of this series at 5:10 pm ET. On the mound for Texas will be our ace Cole Hamels ( 5-1) while on the mound to the Twins will be Kyle Gibson (6-8.)

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A.J. Griffin Returns in Stellar Outing!

Rangers beat Twins 4-1

Your Texas Rangers traveled to Minnesota today to face the Twins at 7:10 pm ET. The team did not get into Minnesota however until about three in the morning following the win and rain delay last night in Arlington. However, the late arrival did not seem to affect the Ranger bats tonight as the Rangers put up runs early in this game while Rangers starting pitcher A.J. Griffin was able to hold the Twins to just one run in his outing.

Rangers Offense

In the first inning, the Rangers were able to get two men on base due to a DeShields walk and a base hit from Andrus. DeShields was brought in to score when Mazara hit a single off of the Twins Mejia, this was Mazara’s 65th RBI so far this season. The Rangers stayed quiet on the scoreboard until the top of the 3rd inning when both Napoli and Gomez were able to get on base. Joey Gallo came to bat and with the count at 1-2 was able to give the Rangers a little insurance, with one swing of the bat Gallo was able to launch his 29th home run of the season and bring the score to 3-1 in favor of the Rangers.

           There were, however, some noticeable absences in the box score tonight. After a week of huge accomplishments we saw from Adrian Beltre you would expect, or at least want to see the hits to continue. Tonight, however, Beltre struck out twice in his four appearances in the batter's box tonight. Another Ranger that struggled tonight is Mike Napoli, who struck out three times tonight, although his struggles have been a long-term problem this season. Napoli is only sporting a .202 AVG this season with a total of 121 strikeouts so far, his career high in strikeouts is 187, which he might be on track to breaking that at this point.

Rangers Pitching

           With the post-Darvish era in full swing now, the Rangers activated A.J. Griffin off of the 60-day disabled list and giving him the start tonight against the 51-54 twins. Griffin so far this year has racked up the 4-2 record with his eight appearances this season before his stint on the DL. In his first outing back in a Ranger uniform, it is safe to say the Rangers played it safe. Jeff Banister kept Griffin on a short pitch count, but Griffin was able to accomplish much with his restraints. Griffin only gave up one earned run off of two hits, striking out four of the Twins players. Griffin certainly looked like the pitcher that the Rangers so badly need right now. Griffin was virtually putting on a clinic of how to return to the majors, sitting down twelve of the last thirteen batters that he faced.

Alex Claudio came on in the latter innings to close out the game. The Rangers still using multiple pitchers to try and find out which man will eventually fill the position of closer. Claudio came into the game with a 2.54 ERA and a total of 4 saves with 34 strikeouts. Claudio was able to avoid any problems by working quickly and getting three outs, including a strikeout while only needed 21 pitches.

The Rangers' record moves to 51-56 with tonights win while still in third place. The good news is that we currently have a winning streak of two games and we are beating a team that is ahead of us in the Wild Card standings. This, of course, is a four game series against the Twins so if the Rangers can keep this streak alive it would provide a little confidence in the two series that ends in Houston against the division leaders and Ranger rivals. 

Tomorrow's game is a 7:10 pm CT in Minnesota on FSSW. 

-Austin Clem 

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Rangers Prevail of the Mariners 5-1!

Post-Darvish Era Begins

Wednesday night was supposed to feature Yu Darvish on the mound but following the trade deadline shake up that send Yu to Los Angeles we were able to see the return of Andrew Cashner to the mound. Griffin so far this year has started in 17 games while sporting a 6-8 record with a 3.48 ERA. Cashner put up six innings giving up six hits and one run to the Mariners with a total of four strikeouts. Not Darvish numbers by any means but I would say that Cashner went out and did his job well; he might have given up the hits but the Ranger defense was standing tall behind him and only allowing the one run.

On the batting side, the Rangers seemed to struggle in the first couple of innings only getting two runs up until the 4th inning. Those two runs were brought to you by a DeShields homerun in the 1st and a Beltre Sac Fly that came in the 4th. In the early innings, it seemed that most of the Ranger hitters struggled against the Mariners Pitcher Miranda who came into this game with a 4.31 ERA. Joey Gallo struck out twice in his first at bats and any Ranger who did manage to make it on base could not manage to stay on base long. With aggressive base running taking place tonight two Rangers were caught when trying to tag up and advance on pop flies.

After the 4th it seems that Ranger bats came to life though. Making up for those two strikeouts, Gallo blasted a two run homer to deep center field. How deep you ask? The ball landed just right of the FSSW camera position by the standing room only sections. That homerun brought Gallo’s total to his 28th homerun so far this season. In the 6th Elvis Andrus blasted a homerun out to the visitor's bullpen bringing his season total to 15.

All season long the biggest problem with Ranger pitching has been the relief efforts in the late innings. These troubles seemed like they might continue tonight when right-hander Jason Grilli came into the came in the 8th. Grilli allowed two back-to-back walks to Mariner’s batters, which brought up a visit to the mound by pitching coach Doug Brocail. Following the Brocail visit, Grilli and Chirinos had quite a long exchange on the mound, which was surprisingly aloud by the home-plate umpire. Grilli was, however, able to work out of his jam by striking out two batters and producing another out. In the 9th we saw Leclerc come out to close the game. Not exactly a cake walk for Leclerc though, he needed a total of 31 pitches to produce one strikeout and allow his defense to produce the other two outs.

I think that it is safe to say that this last week has been a rough one for the Rangers. In the last seven days, they were only able to produce a 2-5 record, not exactly something that makes you wanna sport the colors in front of your rival teams. But there is hope my fellow Ranger fans! After tonight’s game, we are sitting at 4.5 games behind the Wild Card leaders, with just six teams ahead of us. The team can still pull this out with a Wild Card birth.

Next, the Rangers are heading to Minnesota for a four game series. The Twins are currently sporting a 51-54 record and sitting at 3rd in the AL Central but more importantly, they are right above the Rangers in the Wild Card standings. If the Rangers can win the series they will start moving up the ladder on that list. Tomorrow’s game will be a 7:05 pm CT start time!

-Austin Clem

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Smoke Begins to Settle Following the Deadline

Well it’s the day after the trade deadline and the smoke is beginning to settle and players are now on their way to their new homes. The biggest news of the day is, of course, the blockbuster trades involving Yu Darvish and Justin Sunny Gray.

           The Rangers came into the season with the intentions of dominating the American League West like they have the past two years. After a rough start to the season and injuries hitting their starting rotation, it seems that those hopes are gone. Now the Rangers are a stunning NINETEEN games back of the AL best Houston Astros and are sitting fourth in their own division with a record of 50-55 after last night’s loss to the Seattle Mariners.

           All Ranger fans have heard the rumors over the last few weeks regarding Darvish. Darvish is in his contract year and it was highly unlikely that the Rangers would be able to resign him once he entered free agency, so we all knew that the odds of Yu leaving the team were pretty high. The only real question for the Rangers and the fans was “what would we get for him and where would he go?”

           At 3:50 CT it looked as if Yu was staying put in Arlington though. Yu posted on his Twitter account @faridyu that he just had ten minutes until the deadline. Darvish was in front of his locker still wearing his Rangers hat, which we could infer that he thought he would be suiting up for the Monday night 7:05 game. Next thing we know ESPN breaks the news that Darvish had been traded to the Los Angelis Dodgers at the very last second.

           So the question of who has been answered for the fans, now it is the time to figure out what did the Rangers get in return. And I have good news for my fellow Ranger fans out there, it looks like we might have come out on top in this deal. It seems that the John Daniels has decided to give up the Ace for THREE top-level prospects in the Rangers pipeline. From the Dodgers, the Rangers received outfielder Willie Calhoun, right-handed pitcher A.J. Alexy, and infielder Brendon Davis. The reason I am saying that the Rangers have come out on top is that MLBpipeline.com has rated these three players within the top 30 prospects of the Rangers.

           Willy Calhoun was playing in the Dodgers Triple-A league in Oklahoma City; he had played in 99 games and was holding tight to a .298 batting average with a total of 373 at bats and an OBS of .357. Calhoun has predominantly been playing second base in the Dodgers system but the Rangers will look to transition him to left field. The MLBPipeline.com now has him currently ranked the number two prospect in the Rangers farm system. The righty A.J. Alexy has primarily played in the Dodgers single A system and has to this point played in 19 games with a record of 2-6 with an ERA of 3.67. Those stats may not be great on paper but the good news is that Alexy is a young man only nineteen years old, which gives the Rangers plenty of time to fine-tune this potential weapon. The third baseman Brendon Davis has also been playing in the A ball system for the Dodgers and has racked up a .241 batting average in his 94 games played and 340 at bats. Davis is averaging three hits a game with those numbers and currently has fifty base-on-balls this season.

           The Rangers came up as winners with this trade because they only gave up a rental player to the Dodgers. The Rangers only have to get one of these players to become a grade A player for this to be worth it, and with three players in the top 50 pipeline, I would say that the chances are in their favor. Not to mention that the Rangers still have the chance of acquiring Darvish in free agency come to this offseason.

The Dodgers, on the other hand, have much more pressure on their shoulders. They have acquired a 30-year-old pitcher who has a record of 6-9 this year. Darvish has certainly dropped from his high pedestal that Ranger fans had once held him up on.  The Dodgers are in a pennant race that we all know is coming in the fall. Darvish has to step it up now or the Dodgers are going to look like a fool come October.

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-Austin Clem