(Photo Credit: Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press)

Adrian Beltre is the AL MVP this year, regardless of whether or not the league gives it to him.

Last Thursday, he hit a two-run homer to give the Rangers a 3-1 lead over the Angels in the 9th inning. Joe Nathan would go on to record his 35th save.

Tonight, he hit another two-run blast to tie the game 4-4, two innings before hitting a walk-off single in the bottom of the 9th to give the Rangers the 5-4 win over the A’s.

In the months of August and September Beltre has 16 home runs and 34 RBI and is hitting .319. Not to mention, he’s had stunning defensive play after stunning defensive play.

Oh, and he’s playing hurt, last week with a bad shoulder, and recently, with an incredibly disagreeable bowel system.

With the win the Rangers increase their lead in the AL West to five games over the A’s, and it shrinks their magic number from seven to five.

That’s a good thing, and with three more games left in this series, the Rangers can clinch the division with a sweep.

Tomorrow’s matchup: Yu Darvish vs. Tommy Milone.

Go Rangers.

(Photo Credit: Mark Terrill/Associated Press)

In lieu of the regularly irregular Rangers’ Week in Review, I’m posing a simple question.

What the heck is going on?

Pitching has been erratic. The bats have been as well.

Since April, a month that saw Texas go 17-6, the Rangers are 16-18 (14-14 in May, 2-4 so far in June). Their record has slowed, and it’s easy to see why:

In April, Texas had an astounding .292 team batting average, coupled with a 2.81 team ERA.

In May, Texas saw its batting average dip slightly to .285 (still very good), but the team ERA shot up to 4.30.

So far in June, the trend continues, with the Rangers’ batting average dropping even further to .251, and the team ERA rising to 4.50.

More worrisome still is the fact that the Rangers are 10-11 when facing their AL West rivals, three teams that have a combined 80-94 record.

In 21 games against AL West foes, the Rangers are hitting .263 (not terrible, but not great), and their team ERA is 4.59 (awful).

Texas’ pitching is allowing a batting average against of over .260 vs. Oakland and Seattle. On the flip side, they’ve managed to hold the Angels to a .218 BAA.

Another shocking stat: The Rangers have committed 31 errors this season, ten of those have come against either the Mariners (7) or the Angels (3). They’re on pace to commit 17 more errors in the 36 remaining games against the AL West.

In short, the Rangers are not playing their best baseball when they need to the most.

Injuries sure haven’t helped either. Josh Hamilton has missed several games already with an upper respiratory infection, as well as a stiff back. Beltre has missed time with a hamstring injury, and Neftali Feliz has been out for several weeks (and will to miss several more) with an elbow injury.

Not to mention, Derek Holland was just placed on the Disabled List with left shoulder fatigue, and a terrible case of diarrhea. It was announced earlier that Alexi Ogando will take Holland’s spot in the rotation, which weakens a very strong back-end of the bullpen. To replace Ogando, the Rangers called up Tanner Scheppers from Round Rock.

Seeing a second starting pitcher go down has revealed just how thin the Rangers are in the rotation. Scott Feldman will stay in the rotation and is scheduled to pitch Saturday against the Giants. His ERA as a starter this year: 11.15.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the world of Scott Feldman, but the guy just doesn’t have it. He hasn’t had it in any capacity this season (his season ERA is 7.01). His soon-to-be replacement, Roy Oswalt, has made one of four scheduled minor league starts to get him up to speed.

In his first start Oswalt threw two innings, didn’t allow a run, struck out one, walked one and allowed three hits.

His next scheduled appearance is tonight against the Omaha Storm Chasers.

Today though, it’s Yu facing off against Brandon McCarthy, as the Rangers look to split the four game series with Oakland. Let’s hope they start to reverse some of these downward trends.

Go Rangers.

(Photo Credit: Scott Cunningham/Getty Images)

The Texas Rangers just got even better.

After signing Roy Oswalt to a minor league contract on Tuesday, the Rangers have successfully shored up the back-end of their rotation.

With Neftali Feliz out at least two months with a sprained right elbow, and Scott Feldman showing that he just doesn’t have what it takes to be a starter, the Oswalt signing gives Texas a solid, capable pitcher to put in the four or five slot in the rotation.

Sure, Oswalt isn’t the same guy he was with Houston, or in the early part of his time with Philadelphia. If he was, he wouldn’t have been a free agent on Memorial Day.

But the three-time All-Star, 2005 NLCS MVP still has enough in the tank to be able to keep the Rangers in games, especially if he’s facing the back-end of other team’s rotations.

Oswalt boasts a 157-91 career record, and a 3.21 career ERA, but he is coming off of his worst season in 2011, where he went 9-10 with a 3.69 ERA and had several trips to the disabled list with back problems.

One of the coolest things about Oswalt is that he throws what’s known as a “Vulcan change-up.”

The Vulcan change-up is a variation on the slow pitch in every pitcher’s repertoire.

Normal change-ups include:

1. The traditional change-up: the traditional change-up is gripped by all five fingers, the added friction by gripping the ball with all five fingers slows the ball down at the release point, even though the pitcher uses the same delivery and arm speed as he would with a fastball.
2. The circle change: the pitcher creates a circle with his thumb and pointer finger, gripping the ball in his palm with the knuckle of his pointer finger and his middle, ring and pinky fingers.

The Vulcan change-up, however, is gripped like a split-fingered fastball, with one twist. Instead of the ball being placed between the pointer and the middle fingers, it’s placed between the middle and the ring fingers. Thrown with the pitcher’s thumb facing down, the ball will have a hard downward break.

Roy, feel free to dominate hitters with that pitch all you want. Welcome to the team.

Go Rangers.

(Photo Credit: Brandon Wade/AP)

The last two weeks have been very meh for the Rangers.

They’re 8-6 (including last night’s win over Seattle) since May 14th.

That week (the week of the 14th), Ron Washington decided to hold the first of several “rest weeks” for several players.

Andrus, Kinsler, Hamilton, Beltre, Cruz and Napoli all saw time off during the week and it showed in the Rangers’ record as they went 0-2 against Kansas City and 1-1 against Oakland before rebounding for a 2-1 series win over Houston.

This past week, Texas looked very disinterested in playing baseball when they visited the Mariners in Seattle. They dropped a series they had no business losing, thanks to an all-world pitching performance by Felix Hernandez, and a shaky-at-best start from Scott Feldman.

However, the wheels got back on track over the weekend, as the Rangers simply abused the Blue Jays, outscoring them 34-16 over the course of the series.

Hamilton (2), Cruz (2), Torrealba (2), Moreland, Beltre, Kinsler and Napoli all hit home runs in the series.

Cruz hit the most impressive one on Friday night, a 428 foot grand slam to right-center.

Continuing his hot streak, Cruz launched his seventh homer of the season Monday night off of Kevin Millwood. Cruz has seen his batting average jump from .260 to .275 since the start of the Toronto series. Since then he’s gone 8-19 (.421 BA) with three home runs and 11 RBI.

Three Yu Darvish appearances in these past two weeks have seen his record improve to 7-2, as he recorded wins against Oakland and Toronto and a loss against Seattle.

Darvish pitched across from Felix Hernandez during his second loss of the season, and he allowed five runs to score (four earned) and walked a season high six, in just four innings pitched.

He recovered nicely though against Toronto, despite throwing 93 pitches in just five innings of work.

He walked three, but had much better command than in his previous outing (despite feeling sick to his stomach). That, plus nine runs of support, was plenty to put away the Blue Jays.

Meanwhile, the Rangers have had to watch as the Angels continue to get hotter. LA is now second in the division, riding a seven game winning streak, six and a half games back of Texas.

Unfortunately for the Angels though, ace Jered Weaver went down with a lower back injury Monday night against New York.

That places a little more pressure on Dan Haren and C.J. Wilson to perform, which they’ve been doing pretty well as of late.

Speaking of Wilson, that leads us into the latest update of the Darvish vs. Wilson chart:

Darvish’s ERA spiked after the Seattle game (nine of his 22 earned runs allowed this year have come against Seattle), but he’s still leading Wilson in wins and strikeouts.

If you take out the innings/runs allowed against Seattle, Darvish’s ERA drops almost a full point to 2.28.

This week’s schedule:

Tuesday — vs. Seattle Mariners

Wednesday — vs. Seattle Mariners

Thursday — OFF DAY

Friday — @ Los Angeles Angels

Saturday — @ Los Angeles Angels

Sunday — @ Los Angeles Angels

Go Rangers.

(Photo Credit: Patrick Smith/Reuters)

After losing three consecutive series, the Rangers got back on track in a major way this past week.

The Breakdown

Josh Hamilton is the big story here. If you haven’t heard (aka you’re sports oblivious), Hamilton rocked Balitmore’s world, hitting six home runs in the four game series.

That’s not what’s most impressive though.

Four of those came in the same game. Hamilton is the 16th player ever to hit four home runs in a single game, a feat that left me, and a lot of others, speechless.

Here’s a montage of his four homers (all absolute BOMBS). Also of note, I think the center fielder, Adam Jones, was murdered by the wall trying to catch the first homer:

The bat Hamilton used in this game is on its way to Cooperstown.

Once the Rangers were finished demoralizing Baltimore they flew home for the first matchup of the year against the Angels.

Friday night’s highly touted matchup of Yu Darvish vs. C.J. Wilson didn’t go according to plan after a two hour rain delay forced Wilson out of the game after 1/3 of an inning.

Wilson had already thrown 22 pitches, and loaded the bases with one out in the first inning when the heavens opened up.

A torrential downpour kept the teams in the locker rooms for two hours, but when the teams came back out the Rangers stepped on the gas.

In Wilson’s stead was Jerome Williams, Saturday’s scheduled starter, who promptly gave up six runs (three of which were charged to C.J.).

Darvish, however, did come back out, and he pitched 5.1 innings allowing three runs and striking out seven.

The win helped Darvish improve to 5-1 on the year, while Wilson fell to 4-3.

C.J. would totally redeem himself on Saturday though, as he got the start and the win. He went 5.2 innings allowing only two runs, one of which came on another Josh Hamilton homer (Wilson’s face was priceless as he watched the ball leave the stadium).

The rubber match on Sunday was another offensive showing by Texas, who won 13-6 thanks in part to a Nelson Cruz grand slam.

Monday night saw the Royals come to town, and a patchwork Rangers team couldn’t get the job done, losing 3-1.

Ian Kinsler had the night off, as did Mike Napoli, David Murphy and Mitch Moreland.

Scott Feldman got the spot start in place of Derek Holland, and went four strong innings before a throwing error by Adrian Beltre cost the Rangers two runs in the fifth.

Nelson Cruz hit another home run, his fourth of the year, as he continued his current hot streak. His batting average has shot back up to .273, and he’s hitting .469 (15-32) since the start of the Baltimore series.

Record after last week: 23-12

This Week’s Schedule:

Monday vs. Kansas City — L 1-3

Tuesday vs. Kansas City (7:05 CST on FSSW)

Wednesday vs. Oakland (7:05 CST on FSSW)

Thursday vs. Oakland (1:05 CST on FSSW)

Friday @ Houston (7:05 on TXA-21)

Saturday @ Houston (6:15 on FOX)

Sunday @ Houston (1:05 on FSSW)
Go Rangers.

It’s been two weeks since the last WiR, so let’s whip through everything really quick.

The last week in April saw the Rangers abuse the Yankees, and then lose three series in a row to the Rays, Blue Jays and Indians.

Josh Hamilton and Adrian Beltre were both in and out of the lineup, and the Rangers scoring suffered for it.

In the three series after the Yankees, Texas was outscored 47-39.

That all changed tonight though, when the Rangers kicked the life out of the Baltimore Orioles.

Every Rangers starter had at least one hit, with rookie Brandon Snyder (acquired in the Chris Davis trade with Baltimore last year) going 3-for-5 with a home run and six RBI, while Josh Hamilton and Michael Young added home runs.

Matt Harrison went seven strong innings, allowing three runs while striking out three. He only threw 86 pitches, but there wasn’t any need for him to throw more. After the seventh, it was already 7-3.

Then, in the ninth, Texas decided they weren’t done. They scored seven more runs off of Jason Berken, who was making his first major league appearance this year, and now has an ERA of 36.

Poor guy.

With the win, the Rangers move to 19-10, tied for the best record in baseball with the aforementioned Orioles and Rays.

This week’s schedule:

Tuesday 5/8 — @ Baltimore

Wednesday 5/9 — @ Baltimore

Thursday 5/10 — @ Baltimore

Friday 5/11 — vs. LA Angels

Saturday 5/12 — vs. LA Angels

Sunday 5/13 — vs. LA Angels

Go Rangers.

 (Photo via AP)

We finally saw what all the hype was about.

Ten strikeouts, with a variety of speeds and movements on his pitches, helped Yu Darvish last 8 and 1/3 innings against the Yankees en route to his third win of the season.

For the most part, the Yankees hitters looked completely lost.

Former Rangers Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeria went a combined 0 for 8.

Three Yankees: Nick Swisher, Curtis Granderson and Raul Ibanez struck out twice.

On top of his ten strikeouts, Darvish got hitters to ground out 12 times. Only three of the outs he recorded left the infield.

That’s not to say Darvish didn’t struggle at some points. He loaded the bases with no outs in the third inning, only to recover by striking out Granderson, and then getting A-Rod to hit a weak ground ball to Adrian Beltre for a 5-3 double play.

Meanwhile, Ian Kinsler hit his fifth home run of the season to lead off the bottom of the first, and Josh Hamilton singled in Elvis Andrus in the third to give Yu all the run support he would need.

Now, let’s check in on the Darvish vs. Wilson tracker:

Wilson is set to start tonight against the Tampa Bay Rays.

So far though, I’m still happy with the Darvish decision.

It’ll take more than one game like last night to keep fans happy, but it’s a great start.

Go Rangers.

As a child, baseball was my first love.

My parents have told me stories about how I would sit with my dad and watch entire games at the age of 2.

And when I was old enough to start understanding the game, I started getting more and more into it. I would stand in the living room, with my mini Texas Rangers bat and my glove, and I would swing with the hitters, and I would pitch with the pitchers.

One guy in particular that I loved to imitate was Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez.

Pudge was, and is, a rockstar in my eyes.

The 14-time All-Star, 13-time Gold Glove winner (a record for catchers), 7-time Silver Slugger and 1999 AL MVP was one of my heroes on those 90s Ranger teams.

Yesterday, he retired, in Texas, as a Ranger. The way it should be.

He played in the era of undercover steroids, but even the claim by Jose Canseco (who has gone off the deep end) that he injected Pudge with steroids won’t tarnish a career that will undoubtedly gain him entrance into Cooperstown.

Along with all of his various titles, Pudge was a record setter.

In 1999 he set a new AL record for home runs by a catcher, with 35. He also became the first catcher in MLB history to have 30+ home runs, 100 RBI, and 100 runs scored. That season, he also stole 25 bases, becoming the first catcher in history to have a 20+ home run, 20+ stolen bases season.

His career batting average was .296.

He recorded 14,863 put outs as a catcher, in 16,091 attempts. That means he executed 92% of the time.

His career fielding percentage was .991. In 21 seasons the man has only 143 errors, or just under seven errors a season.

He is the greatest Ranger of all time.

The only thing he didn’t do as a Ranger was win the World Series.

But he did it as a Florida Marlin.

When he left the Rangers after the 2002 season I was devastated. However, Pudge wasn’t one of those players that you only liked because he was on your team, he transcended that. I can safely call him my Dirk of the Rangers. I would have cheered for Pudge if he had gone to New York (which he did) or Boston or Narnia or wherever.

So when he won a title with the Marlins in 2003 I was happy for him. In my eyes his career was complete.

Then he went to Detroit, New York, Houston, back to Texas (for 28 games) and then to Washington.

It’s hard to think that a guy who meant so much to this team in the 90s has been away (minus 28 games) for a decade.

The guy is a first ballot Hall of Famer, and one my all-time favorite athletes.

Thanks Pudge.

In the first of what will be a weekly segment throughout this baseball season, I want to discuss something I said in my Rangers Preview a few weeks ago:

Meanwhile, after Josh Hamilton’s relapse in February, I’m getting the feeling that this will be his last season in a Rangers uniform.

The 2010 MVP has been the center of some controversy, from his relapse, to him saying he felt that he didn’t owe the Rangers anything, to him being so out of control in center field that he’s got a reserved spot on the DL.

The Rangers will sign either Hamilton or Nelson Cruz to a long term deal, but they definitely won’t sign both. Right now, I’d throw my money at Cruz. He’s more stable, slightly less injury prone, and he produces almost as much at the plate.

My sentiment has changed over the last few weeks, seeing how Hamilton is hitting .418 with seven home runs and 17 RBI early on this season.

Obviously, we’ll have to wait and see if Hamilton can keep up at this pace and, more importantly, we’ll have to see if Hamilton can stay healthy this season.

If he misses 30-40 games again, as he has the past few seasons, I still think the Rangers will let him walk. If he stays healthy and wins the MVP again though, they may be inclined to keep him around.

Now, let’s get into this past week for the Rangers.

Texas went 5-1 this past week, sweeping the two game series against Boston and taking three out of four from Detroit.

They didn’t just sweep Boston though. They annihilated them.

The Rangers scored 24 runs in two games (in large part to an 18 run outing on Tuesday) while allowing only six. Colby Lewis was the beneficiary of the 18 run outing, as he saw Mike Napoli hit two home runs, while Hamilton, Adrien Beltre, Nelson Cruz and Michael Young all added homers of their own.

It was my first look at the Red Sox bullpen this season, and after all I had read, I was still shocked at how bad it was.

One guy I really feel sorry for is Mark Melancon. The guy had a 49.50 ERA after his appearance in this game, where he was hung out to dry by Bobby Valentine. Melancon allowed six runs on four hits (three of which were home runs) without getting an out.

He has since been send down to Boston’s Triple-A affiliate in Pawtucket.

Derek Holland dueled with Josh Beckett the next night, with both starters pitching seven strong innings. Boston’s bullpen showed how weak it was again though, with Franklin Morales immediately giving up three runs in the eighth that helped Texas pull away.

On Thursday, the Rangers traveled to Detroit, and we got our third taste of Yu fever. The Japanese righty looked much calmer than he did in his first two outings.

He still struggled a little with his control, he walked five batters, but his curveball was vicious, and his fastball had a little more life on it.

The bats pounded out ten more runs though, and gave Darvish a comfortable lead as he worked his way into the 7th inning before giving way to the bullpen.

Friday night’s game was postponed due to rain, which gave way to a Saturday double header.

Poor Ryan Porcello. He couldn’t adjust quickly enough against the Rangers, and he gave up eight runs in the first inning. The only negative to come out of this game was a strained left hamstring for Adrian Beltre. He didn’t play the rest of the weekend, and is listed as Day-to-Day.

From there, the Rangers cruised to a 12-2 record. In the second game of the day though, Justin Verlander showed why he was the first pitcher to win the AL MVP award since Dennis Eckersley in 1992.

Verlander struck out eight batters in six innings, before being pulled.

I was proud of the way Neftali Feliz matched up against Verlander. Feliz went eight strong innings, allowing three runs and striking out six. It just seemed like the lineup was a little tired after the day game earlier.

Sunday afternoon saw a little Rangers luck come into play.

With the bases loaded and no outs in the 11th inning, Alberto Gonzales pulled off a suicide squeeze bunt that scored Nelson Cruz and gave Texas a 3-2 lead.However, what every umpire missed is that the ball actually hit Gonzales on the knee, making it a foul ball. The umpires didn’t call it though, so the play stood.

Joe Nathan came in and got his fourth save of the season, and the Rangers improved to 13-3 on the year.

As of now, they have the largest division lead in the majors, by 5.5 games over Seattle and 6.5 over Oakland. The Angels are currently four games under .500 and seven games back of Texas in the division.

This week, the Rangers come back to Texas to face off against the Yankees, followed by the Rays.

The Schedule:

Monday, April 23 — vs. NYY, 6:00 pm CDT, ESPN

Tuesday, April 24 — vs. NYY, 7:05 CDT, FSSW

Wednesday, April 25 — vs. NYY, 7:05, FSSW

Thursday, April 26 — OFF

Friday, April 27 — vs. Tampa Bay, 7:05, TXA-21

Saturday, April 28 — vs. Tampa Bay, 7:05, FSSW

Sunday, April 29 — vs. Tampa Bay, 7:05, ESPN

Go Rangers.

He wasn’t overhyped, nor is he a bust.

It’s been one game, so let’s just all chill out.

After a 42-pitch, 4-run first inning left Rangers nation a little concerned, the $111.7 million investment, Yu Darvish, recovered.

He threw the next four and two-thirds innings in 68 pitches, allowing only one run. He recovered so nicely, that he received a standing ovation when he left the mound with two outs in the sixth inning.

His stuff wasn’t perfect, but you can be sure nerves had something to do with that.

After all, it was his first major league appearance.

Nothing — not spring training, or the Japanese League World Series — could prepare him for this type of experience. The expectations were, and still are, so high for the 25-year-old from Habikino, Japan, and I have no doubt that things will get much, much better.

Meanwhile, he’s got to love what he saw from a lineup that refused to let him suffer a loss in his first game as a Ranger.

Nelson Cruz, Josh Hamilton, Mitch Moreland and Ian Kinsler all hit home runs, giving Darvish plenty of run support.

Darvish can go ahead and get used to that, even if he won’t need it all the time.

Let’s not forget, after all, that Darvish isn’t the first guy to have a shaky first start as a Ranger.

Two years ago, Cliff Lee came over in a last second, steal of a trade from Seattle. His first outing as a Ranger? Gave up six runs on three homers, and lost 6-1.

I’m not comparing Darvish to Lee quite yet, but he has the stuff to get to that level. There’s no doubt about it.

Darvish’s next start comes this Saturday, against Minnesota, where former Ranger C.J. Wilson just recorded his first win as an Angel.

That reminds me, I’ll be keeping track of Darvish and Wilson’s stats throughout the season, to see how they stack up. After all, the Rangers essentially let C.J. walk in favor of Yu (a move no Ranger fan opposed).

That said, below is the table that will chart Darvish vs. Wilson this season:

So, other than ERA, their stats are off to a pretty similar start.

Go Darvish.

Go Rangers.