00:00How can you not be romantic about dominating a weekend series in Houston?
00:05Outscoring the Astros 9-6.
00:08Oh! They outscored them in the series?
00:10Yeah!
00:11That's why run differential matters.
00:12Look at that. The Rangers lose 2-3, but an 8-0 win on Sunday.
00:19Salvages. They win the run differential in the series.
00:22The aggregate, that's how they should do these things.
00:24That's how they were doing soccer. It's the aggregate, right?
00:26I do believe, as well, I think on the year now they're at, are they plus 3 now?
00:31So I think their entire run differential comes from this.
00:34Yeah, they're plus 3.
00:35So the Rangers are a completely even run differential except for this series.
00:40They are one game back of the swinging A's in the ALS.
00:44Imagine that, one game back.
00:46As yesterday, I always get in this argument with people over,
00:52let's be honest about what the situation is versus using the convenience of some of these other factors.
01:00So, and this fight and argument has been breaking out on Rangers Twitter over,
01:06just look at the division.
01:08Like, you're right there.
01:10Seager and Lankford are out.
01:12And I hate that.
01:13I think opposite.
01:14I'm like, let's be real about it.
01:16They're at the top of a media, or they're near the top of a very mediocre American League.
01:20This is exactly what we, yeah, this is the same thing we talked about, maybe in last year too.
01:24It was definitely two years ago where it was one of those things where it's like,
01:26they're right there.
01:27Why wouldn't you invest them?
01:29Like, because they're not good.
01:31Sell, get rid of these pieces while you can and try to add for the future
01:34because you're not good enough this year.
01:36I look at, if I'm Chris Young, I totally understand the idea that, look, DeGrom and Evaldi are very old
01:45and there might not be a season next year.
01:48And if there's not, we've probably lost them as the top of a rotation World Series contender type pitchers
01:55because if there's no season next year with a lockout, DeGrom's going to be 40 years old before he pitches
02:00again.
02:00You've got to maximize this year.
02:02Same thing for Seager, right?
02:03Seager's not old, but in two years, I mean, how beaten up is his body?
02:07Yeah, this year's different.
02:08I'm not saying the Celtics.
02:09The Celtics thing was a couple years ago.
02:11Right.
02:11If you could add offense to this team, I'd be in favor of it.
02:14They just have shown no willingness to do it.
02:16The American League.
02:18Morbility.
02:19Yeah.
02:20They may be willing, but you've got to come under the cap.
02:24The Rangers are 22-24.
02:28Cleveland leads the Central at 26-22.
02:32All right.
02:33That's not far off from where they are.
02:36Tampa and the Yankees are the only two teams in the entire American League that have fewer than 20 losses.
02:43Tampa's a 30-15.
02:44Yankees are 28-19.
02:47But nobody really buys Tampa.
02:49They're a fun offense.
02:51So you're really like...
02:52And the Yankees have flaws up and down.
02:55Yeah.
02:55The opportunity is blinking.
02:57It's blinking at you.
02:58It's right there in front.
03:00If you're looking at it like that, it's like, all right, let's go for it because we know
03:04something's not going to happen next year.
03:06But also, it's like, how realistic are you going to be?
03:09If you have a chance to make the playoffs, I think you go for the postseason, especially
03:13in baseball, especially with this pitching staff.
03:16But I don't know how you look at this weekend.
03:18And I was being...
03:18Obviously, if you don't know, I was being sarcastic about the 9-6.
03:22Yes, they did.
03:23Wow, cool.
03:23There's no way to look at this other than a wasted weekend.
03:27You went up against one of the worst pitching staffs in the sport and the worst pitching
03:34staff in the American League.
03:36The Houston Ashes have allowed 263 runs.
03:40Nobody in the sport, in the AL, has allowed more than 249 other than them.
03:45And that's Baltimore.
03:47And then the Angels are 246.
03:48And then nobody else is above 225.
03:50Their ERA coming in was a 5-5-9.
03:54And they embarrassed you in the first two games.
03:56A shocking margin of more than a half a run.
03:59They're the worst in baseball, team ERA-wise, by more than a half a run.
04:04And they almost no-hit you.
04:07Like, basically, through two and a half games, it felt like you got no hit.
04:11Two and a half games of the series.
04:13This is...
04:14I wish for the purposes of the show that yesterday's win happened on Friday.
04:20Right.
04:21And then the other two games happened Saturday and Sunday.
04:23So we could come in with the focus.
04:25It would obviously be a lot more negative.
04:27But I think it's most important to focus on really what happened Friday and Saturday.
04:31Yeah, it's like...
04:32You almost literally got no hit for the series.
04:34I think of this.
04:35On Friday, Leiter pitched wonderfully.
04:38Yes.
04:38Seven innings, one earned run.
04:40Imagine having your starting pitcher go seven innings, one earned run, and the game felt like
04:45you were down six.
04:46It's...
04:47I mean, it's the...
04:49It's the Cowboys getting their ass kicked against Baltimore or something.
04:52And then they come back and they score like 16 in the fourth quarter to make it look like
04:56it was a one-run...
04:57Or like a one-score game.
04:59Yeah.
04:59And then you're sitting there and the Cowboys are trying to tell you like, look, look how
05:02close we were.
05:03We showed so much heart.
05:04It's like, no, no, no, no.
05:05We don't get to...
05:05We don't just get to a race over what happened here.
05:08And like I said, yesterday, even when they scored eight runs, they got to the fifth inning
05:11without a hit.
05:12Like, I mean, it took them...
05:14They were still no hit for half the game.
05:16And then being in second in the division right now, I just wouldn't look at this.
05:1911 of the 15 teams in the National League would be ahead of Texas in the AL West right
05:25now.
05:2511 of them.
05:26Here are some of the numbers in...
05:28Bobby had some of these.
05:29In 12 of their last 14 games, they either scored six or more or one or fewer.
05:35It goes back to your all or nothing from last week.
05:38And then Choppy had the offense heading into yesterday.
05:41Nimmo was 0 for his last 12.
05:43Young was 0 for his last 8.
05:443 for his last 20.
05:46Evan was 2 for his last 14.
05:48Duran was 4 for his last 20.
05:50Jamie Newberg tweeted this out.
05:52The staggering note when comparing this offense to last year's, the MLB average for team runs
05:58scored in a game this year is 4.4.
06:00The Rangers are at 3.6.
06:02That's last in the American League.
06:04It's second worst in the whole sport.
06:06Last year when the offense was the culprit for this season, they scored 4.5.
06:112.2 runs per game, which this year would be close to middle of the pack.
06:15Last year, 4.2 per game.
06:17This year, 3.6.
06:18It's that much worse.
06:19And to take eight walks on Saturday and score one run is so egregiously bad.
06:2913 runners on.
06:30Awful.
06:31And I saw a stat that only won twice in 54 years prior as a franchise.
06:36They had that kind of a stretch where they had that many runners on and that many walks
06:40and only scored one run.
06:41I mean, the offense is just not doing it.
06:43And when you waste lighters, start on Friday.
06:47And to Grom, I mean, he allowed four solo homers.
06:50He really wasn't bad.
06:52He allowed five hits, four more homeruns.
06:54He's given up, for whatever reason, he's allowing the long ball this year at a crazy high rate.
07:01Nine starts, ten homeruns.
07:03Yeah, which is the same as Ivaldi.
07:05Ivaldi's given up ten homeruns this year.
07:06Same sort of thing.
07:07This is...
07:08Their patience is gone.
07:10Rangers fans.
07:11Because this is...
07:12Every time we would talk in the last couple years, ever since 23,
07:16when we would talk about the Rangers and if there were any of these struggles,
07:19usually there was, I would say, majority pushback.
07:22Hey, these guys are going to start hitting.
07:24This is going to happen.
07:25This is going to...
07:25The last couple times in the last two weeks that we...
07:28Whenever we've talked about the Rangers' struggles,
07:30the fan text is jumping down their throat.
07:32And just talking about, you know, we've got...
07:34You've got 2-1-4.
07:36There's no ability financially.
07:37Ray should sell the team.
07:38Rangers fans deserve better.
07:402-1-4.
07:41Chris Young is a horrible roster builder.
07:42His trades are absolutely awful.
07:454-6-9.
07:46Or 2-1-4 says, this offense sucks.
07:484-6-9.
07:49Tough because the AL may be in play,
07:51but Berger, Jock, and Higgy are not part of a team that upsets the Dodgers.
07:55Like, there's general discontent now that I think it was about two and a half years
07:59you bought yourself.
08:00Yeah.
08:00With that World Series title, where now Rangers fans are starting to say,
08:03all right, this has got to get cleaned up because this just isn't fun to watch.
08:06That's the biggest problem.
08:06It's not fun to watch them.
08:08No.
08:08It's fun to watch the pitchers.
08:10They're good.
08:10It's fun to watch the pitchers.
08:11The pitching is really good.
08:12What was the watchability scale that you found or had?
08:15Let me pull it up here.
08:17David Schoenfield had done that list earlier in the year
08:20and had them as one of the more difficult teams to watch.
08:22The nine tiers of watchability.
08:25I text you guys every other day bitching about this.
08:30Oh, it's tough.
08:31It's brutal.
08:33It's tough.
08:35I'm requirement hate watching.
08:37I get you.
08:38I feel you on this one.
08:39Oh, like to the tiers where SI had this appointment viewing is like Dodgers, Cubs, Braves, Yankees.
08:45And then you have your tier two, which at the time is now.
08:48And that's like the Brewers, the Mariners, the Rays.
08:54Flawed but fun is Seattle and Washington and the A's.
08:58More flawed but less fun is like Baltimore and Houston.
09:01And you get all the way down to tier eight out of nine, the 2023 World Series.
09:07That's what the tier is.
09:09And obviously Dimebacks and Rangers.
09:10And it says the Rangers have an aging roster that's got up to a slow start.
09:14And unlike their former home, Globe Life Field has played more like a pitcher-friendly environment,
09:17which contributed to the fact that Texas has scored the fewest runs in the AL
09:21and allowed the second fewest.
09:23DeGrom is worth tuning in for when he takes the mound.
09:25But otherwise, they lack pizzazz.
09:28They do.
09:29They lack pizzazz.
09:30972 says, my son and I have always watched Rangers games together.
09:33We turned it off the other night for Savannah Bananas is what we decided to watch.
09:37Drink toll.
09:37They're good.
09:38They're good.
09:39What's the tier below us?
09:42What's the category?
09:43The tier below us is tier...
09:46The Rockies.
09:47Nine is Hope is Lost.
09:50That's Rockies, San Fran...
09:52Who we face tonight.
09:53And the Angels.
09:54Colorado tonight.
09:55Colorado tonight.
09:57That's in Colorado, right?
09:59Yes.
09:59Oh, baby.
10:00They might score some runs.
10:02Now, this, you'll know.
10:04You'll know if this team goes out there and scores...
10:07It gets shut out in two of the three.
10:09Or scores like two runs in each of the first...
10:12You'll know something's wrong.
10:14I know it.
10:14I already know.
10:15In a breaking news story, something is wrong.
10:17Something is wrong.
10:18If we...
10:19I just took a tour of the Star the other week.
10:21Hello.
10:22And you walk by, right, in the war room.
10:25If you walk by the Rangers' war room and on their whiteboard, there's anything other than a list of offensive
10:33names and bats to go pursue and try to trade for, then I don't want to suggest a crime.
10:43But their war room's just an Excel sheet, like a budget.
10:47They probably...
10:48The whiteboard better be nothing but bats and names.
10:51That's it.
10:51I would not be upset with a closer.
10:53A true, like, a true closer closer.
10:57But that's only after you get a bat, because otherwise...
11:00The closer's kind of useless.
11:02That's...
11:03That's the biggest thing to figure out now.
11:04We've got to start figuring out, like...
11:06It's around this time where you start figuring out, like, all right, which...
11:09Who offensively could be purged around the league?
11:12Like, who are teams going to start getting rid of?
11:13This is my plan right now.
11:14Diamond Cavs on your home of the Rangers.
11:16You buy big on bats, and if you can't do it, or Ray Davis doesn't let you go over the
11:22threshold financially,
11:23then you sell big, because of next year factoring that in.
11:28If you can't buy big on bats, then you sell big.
11:32That would be how I would pivot.
11:33DeGrom, Nate, Seager, bye-bye-bye.
11:36Yep.
11:37Bye-bye-bye.
11:38Bye-bye-bye.
11:38Because we're on May.
11:39It's going to be May.
11:41Oh, gosh.
11:42That's good.
11:44Diamond Cavs here, Sean and RJ at 105.
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