The feisty Rangers’ pitching staff

Who’d have ever thought those five words would be used together? Certainly not me.

But that’s what we saw last night in the Rangers impressive 7-3 win over Detroit; an attitude that has probably never been seen before by the fans at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.

Eddie Guardado was getting into it with Jim Leyland, Jason Grilli was defending himself, and the Tigers looked pretty foolish after Zach Miner threw behind Ian Kinsler.

Enough has been said about this offense (although it does seem the team is getting hot right now), but Jamey Newberg made the best point about this pitching staff – they have a swagger.

This staff goes out and expects to shut down the opposing offense every time out. Millwood, Padilla, Feldman, Hunter, Holland all bring their own unique talents, not to mention the Wolfpack.

Frankie will be back soon which will make this ‘pen even better. Right off the DL, Francisco ought to be the 8th inning guy with how well C.J. Wilson has pitched this year. But with Ceej, Frank and O’Day at the back end, I feel pretty good if our starter makes it to the 6th inning with the lead. And with the number of times that’s happened this year, that seems to be a pretty safe bet.

Nothing against Jason Jennings, but he makes me a little nervous whenever he’s out there. Nippert and Mathis have been great as long men out of the pen, although I think Mathis should stay there for good. Guillermo Moscoso has done very well this year at AAA as a starter, so I think he might be the next candidate to fill-in whenever one of our pitchers can’t go.

The next few days are going to be interesting for this staff. It would be very nice to see Padilla and Millwood gut out a couple of starts on Thursday and Friday, especially considering Mathis and Nippert both need some time to recover. If Padilla and Millwood could go, that would mean a rotation of Padilla-Millwood-Hunter-Holland for the four games against the Mariners this weekend. King Felix is slated to go Saturday with Washburn behind him on Sunday, but Washburn has been at the center of a ton of trade speculation, so he might be gone by then.

But if the more senior members of this starting staff can win the first two games of this series against the back-end of the M’s rotation, I feel pretty good about trotting Hunter and Holland out there this weekend.

It’s just amazing to watch the Rangers and know they have a chance to win every time out there because of their pitching staff.

Let’s hope that Jon Daniels does whatever is necessary to keep it that way.