Impressions from last night’s Rangers loss

The Rangers need Josh Hamilton to return to boost their slumping offense.

Having been a Rangers fan for my entire life, I’ve seen quite a bit of bad baseball. Most of us Rangers fans have, if you’ve been a serious Rangers fan for some period of time. But last night…woof. Easily the worst offensive performance I’ve ever seen. (Which the numbers back up – first one-hitter ever pitched against the Rangers at the Ballpark) Just absolutely brutal. But it wasn’t even close to some of the worst games I’ve seen, as Tommy Hunter had a fine start, limiting the Padres to 2 runs in 6.1 innings.

I guess that’s what made last night so tough. The Rangers have never had the consistent quality pitching they’ve gotten this year. Especially here in the month of June, there have been a bunch of winnable games that the Rangers lost because of the offense, not because of the pitching.

So what to do? Well…there are a few options.

Option #1 – Go young.

Bring up a bunch of young guys from the minors, cut loose some veterans, and just roll with the young guys and see if they can make things better. Get rid of Blalock, Jones, Guardado and Willie Eyre. Bring up Julio Borbon, A.J. Murray and Neftali Feliz. Install Borbon (.298/.365/.387) as the everyday center fielder and make him the Rangers’ version of Jacoby Ellsbury. Let Murray (1.40 ERA) be your left-handed specialist (or LOOGY). Start Feliz out in the bullpen like Derek Holland and keep Tommy Hunter in the rotation. Once Josh Hamilton comes back within a week, install him as the DH and play him occasionally in left or right field when somebody needs a day off. Keep the infield the same until Justin Smoak proves he is ready for a call-up.

Option #2 – Ride out the slump.

Don’t change a thing. Continue to play Blalock and/or Jones every day. Keep the lineup exactly the same. Hope all the hitters fix what they’re doing wrong and hope the pitching stays the same and just remember the good times of this season and hope they come back. Josh Hamilton will be back within a week or so, and the offense will get better because things can’t get worse.

Option #3 – Make a trade.

I don’t think that this team would trade for a pitcher. At least, I hope not. Rangers GM Jon Daniels seems to be content to have the Rangers take their lumps with young starters such as Holland and Hunter. Brandon McCarthy and Matt Harrison are on the DL, but Kevin Millwood and Scott Feldman have been dependable, and Vicente Padilla seems to be dependable after the Rangers placed him on waivers. A pitching trade would probably end up hurting this team more than helping it, especially in the long run.

A trade for a hitter, surprisingly, seems to be what the Rangers are more linked to right now than anything. Two hitters that have come up more than anyone, oddly enough, are Washington Nationals. Oft-injured 1B Nick Johnson and OF Josh Willingham are two hitters that have been listed as potential trade targets because they are having (relatively) decent seasons and have good on-base percentages (Willingham .399, Johnson .410, both of which would be the best mark for a Rangers hitter by a significant margin). Willingham has always been a pretty solid hitter – two seasons of 20+ HR, career OBP of .365, career slugging of .478 – but I’m not sure he would really be that much of an upgrade over what the Rangers have (especially defensively) to warrant giving anything up for him. And Nick Johnson isn’t going to do anything but block the development of our younger players.

Personally, I think the team should try and ride out the slump. The team has, according to Tennessee media relations, called up outfielder Julio Borbon today (probably sending down SP Tommy Hunter), but I really think that the team has been a victim of some poor luck with their hitting over the past month. The Rangers BABIP (batting average with balls in play) this month has been .261, which is worst in baseball. (League average is around .290-.300.) If a few more balls in play fall for hits, the Rangers might have had a totally different month, record-wise. No need for doom and gloom. Yet.

Photo courtesy everyjoe.com via Newscom