00:00and the rangers would go on to win that game five to nothing and i have to admit at that
00:05point i had
00:06grandiose ideas running through my head and then the weekend ended up in a series loss ladies and
00:13gentlemen the weekend going into this series the texas rangers were nine and 38 at t-mobile park
00:23since 2020 nine and 38 yeah but they had already swept the mariners at home and when they won on
00:32friday that was four wins over the mariners for the season in four games in those four games the
00:38rangers had beaten the mariners more times than they did in all of the 2025 season and all of the
00:442024 season when they went three and ten against the mariners in both of those seasons and i was
00:49oh my gosh maybe we have it seattle just doesn't look good to start this season maybe we've got it
00:56and then here we are today and you lost the series and now you're 10 and 40 at t-mobile
01:03park not you
01:04we lost the series and the rangers are now 10 and 40 at t-mobile park since 2020 and by
01:14the way cory i
01:15know this isn't probably the number one thing but if you recall i told you we were going to win
01:19on friday i was just about to point that out we kept the pattern the rangers have a really bizarre
01:26run to start the season and it probably makes sense that they're 11 and 11 but once you got past
01:32the
01:32opener win four straight lose four straight win three straight lose two win two lose two win two lose two
01:39you have not since opening day had the one win one loss combination back to back that wasn't part of
01:48another combination of multiple wins or losses and that's just really weird to me yeah no that it is
01:54it is odd and i'm curious
02:00one of the things that i'm i'm sticking to is this 30 game window that sir told us about earlier
02:07because
02:07one of the things that i heard this morning was that hitters are very clued into the rangers first
02:15pitch there i mean you saw yesterday it went yard and so do you stick with that for a 30
02:22game window
02:22knowing that it could be a problem for you or and then adjust and change and freak everybody out after
02:2830 games and then you just continue that kind of pattern and i wonder what skip looks at that he
02:34is
02:34is or isn't doing with his lineup yeah or motivationally in these windows where you've won two and lost two
02:43yesterday kevin listening to dave raymond and mike talk um it they said uh tommy lasorda
02:50your guy yeah that's right he he he could not talk enough about jason witten's pants guy he's so big
02:57um it's a real thing that happened he and he um he was like the lasorda always wanted to win
03:03the last
03:04game of a road trip kind of have the wind in your sails going home well skip put out a
03:09really good
03:09his lineup that would be his best lineup essentially yesterday he put that out there and they weren't
03:15able to get the win or get their offense really going at any point i really thought josh young was
03:21going to hit a grand slam like i really thought i mean he's going on fire this month but i
03:26i do wonder
03:27what kind of like right now i've seen frustration on skip's face a couple times we've seen like he
03:33he has expectations for this team that at times they aren't living up to and then there are other
03:39times when he's like they're even better than i thought they would be yeah but i'm just kind of
03:42curious as to what data he's collecting in the first 30 here that and the adjustment they're going
03:48to make on the other side of it but yeah that pattern is sticking right now and it's kind of
03:52crazy
03:52my number one adjustment would be take whatever you're doing right now with runners and scoring
03:57position and don't do that anymore because even in the game that you want like you're right about
04:04yes excuse me yesterday yesterday was an across the board disappointing offensive output although i
04:13will point out only to be fair josh young this month hitting 385 with an ops of 1.075 and
04:22that's got
04:22his numbers kind of around he's back up to 290 overall so the 290 batting average in the 820 ops
04:28i
04:28feel like is what people have dreamed about seeing for him for years and years and locking that in for
04:34a full season would freaking love to see that but even going back to friday and saturday this is the
04:40first shutout win that you had over seattle since 2022 although it would be way weirder if it was a
04:46shutout loss but the rangers had 12 strikeouts and left 13 men on base per jared sandler that was only
04:55the fourth time in franchise history that they've had that many of both of those things in the nine
05:02inning win in team history and that's crazy but then look to what happened on saturday you left 16
05:10men on base that is one shy of the franchise record in nine inning games so let's just take those
05:16two games again you were far more limited offensively yesterday on friday and saturday
05:21the rangers left a combined 29 people on base too many 29 that is staggering and
05:30lee bad kind of go back to it was the last game against the dodgers i believe yeah last game
05:39against
05:39the dodgers up until that point one two three four five six jake berger had six strikeouts total
05:47that last game against the dodgers he had four alone and he's had golden sombrero he had five in
05:53the last two games so like that's changed for him since then i don't know what it was where his
05:59focus
06:00is but kevin when it comes to clearing those bases if you get a walk of cory seager you need
06:05to punish
06:05teams that has to happen so yeah leaving runners on with the top part of your lineup isn't a good
06:11thing now they did clear it late in that game but that was at the point where woo was good
06:16all day and
06:16you finally got to him and it was time to really crack that thing open for burger can i ask
06:22if we're
06:23just reverting to what his career has been because that's one of the things with burger is you get a
06:30lot
06:30of pop and you get a lot of strikeouts yeah which you know i feel like we all kind of
06:35thought and
06:36understood when we got here maybe not at the current pop though yeah i gotcha and maybe we could slow
06:42down that strikeout pace somewhat because it is at an astonishing pace pace to your point thus far but
06:49for this year he's still on pace for 37 home runs and 125 rbis which would clearly be ridiculous and
06:57also
06:57makes me wonder about ops sometimes because his ops is 745 doubles are missing i know you're you're
07:03right it's home run or strikeout kind of stuff that's what it is it just feels like if you walked
07:08away
07:08with 37 and 125 you'd be like your ops is probably okay i there are a lot of things i
07:13like about this
07:14roster a lot of a lot of things to like about the lineup whenever it gets clicking it's just finding
07:21them all clicking at the same time has been a tough thing and i don't know when it's going to
07:25happen and
07:26you can't sit around and wait for that when you're at the top of the division and you have a
07:30chance to
07:30actually do something because if you sit around and wait for it all right guys it's going to click
07:34it's going to click then you could get last year again yeah okay so that's actually my real question
07:42and you're right they are at the top of the division at 11 and 11 tied with the a's you
07:48know how we were
07:48talking about last week about parody there is one division in baseball that is not separated by half
07:56a game now that division is separated by a lot because the nl east apparently is really terrible
08:02and the braves are not terrible whatsoever but every other division in baseball there is no lead
08:09between first and second place higher than a half a game including the rangers who are tied for first
08:14with the a's but my real question was going to be what if that never changes so i do not
08:21think it's
08:21i i don't think it's unlikely at all that you're not going to have your lineup clicking most of the
08:28way at any point in the season i kind of think this is what you're going to get like you're
08:33going to get
08:33the seager probably months but i think you're going to get like the evan carter two weeks and i think
08:38you're going to get the josh young two weeks and i don't know how much overlap that's going to be
08:42could you see that as essentially what happens the whole season yeah and i don't know how to get
08:47dudes to sync up yeah i really and i i say that as a joke but i also say that
08:53as a real thing i have
08:54no clue how you get everybody kind of in that same groove mindset like we saw them during the world
09:01series run like that's the that's the time we saw it the most i don't know and what concerns me
09:07a
09:07little bit kevin is i think the mariners can click at the right time together like they're not right
09:13now but this series helped them over the weekend i think they can find that switch and be like all
09:19right we're all you know at least four of us are all on the same page right now and we're
09:23just
09:24producing runs and we're getting these wins that's what concerns me because you're right there you're
09:28hovering you're at 500 right which is weird because isn't that what uh chris young told us he like
09:36hope they could be after the first 40 sure if we can be 500 i think we'll be in good
09:40position
09:41not necessarily because of the opponents after that just because the way that this schedule in
09:46the first 40 is you brought it up it's that tough it's brutal it's a brutal stretch to start this
09:51season uh but if i i feel like the mariners can kind of make another swing like that too i
09:58don't know
09:58about the a's and the angels i don't i don't have a good feel for them right now the a's
10:03i think are
10:04a 500 team uh the rangers i think can be just a little bit better than 500 i really do
10:10feel that
10:11way about this team but if they're if their offense can't save their their pitching sometimes they're
10:16gonna have troubles that being said we asked earlier and then we were told to shut up by ourselves
10:23nathan avaldi that was not his best outing and i didn't love what i saw from him and i'm i
10:29have
10:29concerns so nathan avaldi kind of and gore's fat and curveball i have concerns there too yeah which
10:38is weird because if you couldn't hit it before and now you got a good read on it and after
10:42the first
10:42one or two innings of his previous start it still looked pretty top notch avaldi like
10:49era wise wasn't terrible but if you were watching the game you definitely were like what he would
10:54disgusted with himself yeah that's the and and avaldi kevin history has shown us if he doesn't
11:01like a pitch he's gonna hate a pitch sure he will tell he shows you physically how he feels whenever
11:07he's on the mound that's what history has shown us but he didn't look like he liked anything on
11:12saturday night in what i was able to see of that game would you describe that start as bleh
11:17yeah okay because this is what i was thinking for avaldi he had two bad starts one good start
11:24one great start and then yeah which is kind of like i think his era is a little bit inflated
11:32obviously because he got run from those first two starts earlier and just wasn't pitching well
11:37but man the the hits that were given up in that last one i know they didn't crush him
11:43on saturday but it was an appearance that you're like hmm that's not looking so great
11:49it kind of reminds me just a little bit and this is a weird comp but i want to keep
11:54watching gavin
11:55collier because that's somebody that we were excited about in spring training is he's had three
11:59appearances though obviously two of them were just to get one out and he's kind of lived a little
12:06bit dangerously with the runners on but has been unscathed so far and so that's a positive because
12:12you're going to need as much ammunition in the bullpen as possible but yeah after one of his
12:17walks over the weekend it looked like skip was just kind of gnawing his teeth over there and i was
12:22like
12:22oh no that's not good they all looked a little concerned yeah and and i think whenever you you're
12:28because your hope is that i put a dude up on the mound to replace my starter that guy gets
12:32out clean
12:33that's that's the hope not that that guy gives me a couple walks that put make me anxious well and
12:38and i see you know from the 561 and we talked about this going in it's possible you're just
12:42looking at a 500 baseball team and i think the fact that you're at 500 makes sense because doesn't it
12:47feel like the hitting has been slightly elevated over last year but on the flip side the pitching
12:55has definitely lowered probably more than i think the hitting has raised which we should have expected
13:00yeah but you should expect a regression a little bit from how good they freaking were last year
13:06but you also should have expected a little progression from mackenzie gore was good early
13:11uh and late the last couple games he got kind of got knocked around he could find it real quick
13:16but then jack lighter and rocker you're kind of hoping you know a much more progression from them
13:21to kind of balance out the regression you expected from de grom and evaldi but yeah you're right you
13:26have a really good point you need more from the offense to cover that part of it yeah because
13:31otherwise i besides de grom i don't think any of your starters have an era sub four
13:35but it's early and jack lighter is a great example where it started off and you're like
13:40holy crap is this the next ascension of jack lighter and then you have a couple of dud starts
13:46and you're like what's up with him what up with that
13:48you look it's fun with that
13:48yeah
13:49you
13:49you
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