Dallas Round Up – A Busy Week For Dallas Sports Fans

The NFL is sharing the spotlight in Dallas this week as the Stars are getting hot, the Mavericks are trying to make moves for their title defense and the Rangers are plotting their next attack as well.

Dallas Cowboys

The Cowboys fell 37-34 to the New York Giants at home, and Wagerweb reviews of this game may state that it just felt like a game that Dallas would lose. They were up by 12 with 3:14 to go, but the Cowboys made a few mental mistakes down the stretch and now they’re tied with the Giants for the lead in the NFC East. Dallas has to shake this loss off quickly as they’re in Tampa Bay on Saturday night and this is a game they need to have to keep pace in the East.

Dallas Stars

The Stars are atop the Pacific Division as of Thursday, when they’ll be in New York to face the Islanders, and they had won two in a row after blanking the Rangers 1-0 on Tuesday. Those who order price per head bookmaking software are slowly getting back in the Stars’ bandwagon after a rough patch that involved a slew of injuries, and goalie Richard Bachman has been solid over the past two games as Dallas wraps up their road trip in New Jersey on Friday. The Stars have the weekend off before hosting Anaheim and Philadelphia next week.

Dallas Mavericks

The Mavericks already look different from the team that won the title over Miami as Tyson Chandler is gone (New York), as is playoff sparkplug J.J. Barea (Minnesota). Chandler should be the biggest difference-maker among those that purchase pay head service as his defense was a massive factor in last season’s win, but the Mavericks picked up Lamar Odom, which weakens their rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers and gives the Mavericks some flexibility. Dallas also signed Vince Carter and while he is obviously past his best, he can provide some scoring off the bench.

Texas Rangers

The Rangers are another team aiming to make some noise in the offseason, although they’ve already been a player who came out on the wrong end of the C.J. Wilson deal as he signed with the Los Angeles Angels, Texas’ American League West rivals who also signed Albert Pujols. The Rangers are now trying to strike a deal with Derek Holland, whom the Rangers would like to step up to the top of the rotation in place of Wilson. Holland is arbitration-eligible now and would be a free agent in 2015, but after Wilson left, the Rangers would like to tie him up and give themselves a chance to boost their online wagering odds.

An eventful weekend for the Rangers

First, the good part. Derek Holland looked awesome yesterday, the offense woke up (at least a little bit), and the Rangers took two of three from the Angels. It looks like the Rangers are in the Angels’ heads, plus the Texas nine are tied for the lead for the American League Wild Card berth. The Rangers get three against Cleveland this week before coming home to face the Red Sox, and while Cleveland has been playing better, the Indians are a team that the Rangers should beat.

Another good part: No more Vicente Padilla. Yeah, he was talented. He was also a headcase that wasn’t that good this year! He had an ERA of almost 5.00 with his worst K/9 rate as a Ranger and the second highest WHIP in his time in Texas. Frankly, I’d rather have Dustin Nippert. Is the Rangers staff a little bit thinner right now? Yes. If another one of these guys go down, the Rangers are probably going to have to start Doug Mathis or Guillermo Moscoso. But next year, this team will have A LOT of arms. Not to mention the fact that Ben Sheets is still a free agent and could very well help the Rangers significantly next year. Assuming the Rangers sign Sheets, the rotation could be something like this: Sheets/Millwood/Feldman/Holland/Hunter, with backup starters like Harrison, McCarthy, Moscoso, Nippert and Eric Hurley (kind of a forgotten man this year). I think McCarthy is best suited for the bullpen in the long run anyway, but that is a lot of options. And that’s not even factoring in Feliz. With a good winter season and spring training, we could be looking at Feliz in the rotation and Hunter (unfortunately) bumped to that group of backup starters.

Now, (gulp) the bad part. Josh Hamilton. A lot has been made about what happened in Arizona. There are plenty of places where you can read all of the information about Josh’s experience, apology, etc. But there are quite a few things that bug me about this story. Namely, it exists. I’m sure that the Rangers and Josh talked about coming out with the story in January, but I don’t think that would have been the right move. Josh has said that his memory of the night is quite spotty. Does he even remember posing for the pictures that surfaced over the weekend? If the Rangers had come out in January and talked about the incident without any pictures, what would the reaction have been then? Is this story really worthy of all the coverage, or are sports talk people simply searching for something to talk about? It’s a shame that Derek Holland hasn’t gotten more press and airtime for his performance yesterday and what more starts like that would mean for this team down the stretch.

But, alas, this world focused on Josh Hamilton is the world we live in today. The world where sports coverage doesn’t really have that much to do with sports. Ranger fans can’t be pumped to listen to the radio to hear about Derek Holland – they have to listen to more talk about Josh. Which, in the end, probably won’t affect the team too much, unless this story impacts Josh’s play. It didn’t on Saturday. If Josh stays hot for the next week or two? It will probably fade away. If he can’t get the average above .240, Josh is going to be dogged about this for the rest of the year.

Let’s hope, for the team’s sake, that it doesn’t come to that.

Photo edited by Matt Lawrence