00:00The Rangers had won four straight on Wednesdays in which we had Skip Schumacher on the show.
00:06That streak comes to an end, and now the best you can hope for is a split with the Astros
00:13in this series
00:14with the final game of the four-game series set for today.
00:18Pre-game at 6.30, first pitch about 7.07, right here on 105.3 The Fan.
00:23Now, I know we talked about this a little bit in Crosstalk, Alec,
00:26but why, oh why, would you even accidentally throw Jordan Alvarez a strike?
00:34Jordan Alvarez, by the way, in case you were curious, is on pace for 57 home runs this year,
00:39111 RBIs with an OPS of 1.085.
00:43You know, I don't have an answer to that question, Kevin, but you know what I do?
00:48I do have a weird reason to thank him, because he's showing us that the ballpark isn't an issue for
00:56offense.
00:57Man, at all.
00:59Prodigious shot, as Mr. Nadel said.
01:01I haven't heard that word used in a sentence in I don't know how long,
01:05and it's only fitting that Jordan Alvarez crushing a baseball is the reason that that word was used,
01:11but he even said it after the game.
01:13This just made it hurt a little bit more.
01:15He said, apparently, I love playing here.
01:18I can see the ball really well.
01:20Okay.
01:21So he's even saying, here at this ballpark, I can see the ball well, and I can mash.
01:27And it speaks to a troubling trend for maybe the Rangers starting pitchers as a whole,
01:35but honestly, Jacob DeGrom, in terms of, I mean, there's just no way
01:44he located that pitch where he wanted it.
01:49Like, I don't feel like I'm breaking down any revolutionary thoughts right there,
01:53but there's just no freaking way that that is what he wanted to do with that pitch.
02:02Although, actually, that one was Tyler Alexander.
02:05So, sorry, shouldn't have called him out on that.
02:10But Jacob DeGrom also gave up a home run, and so it's just, you continue that disappointing trend,
02:19and I know people have some concerns about Tyler Alexander, but hey, today, just don't pitch to him.
02:25So, I think it's a pretty easy solution.
02:28That has to be the game play.
02:30You plan anything other than throwing him a quality strike in that situation,
02:35really in any situation at this ballpark at this point, especially, like, Jacob DeGrom,
02:41he's been kind of snakebitten by the home run ball just altogether.
02:44He really has.
02:45Really the past couple of years.
02:46So, that doesn't necessarily shock me that an elite hitter got to Jacob DeGrom this time,
02:52but whenever you're in such a tight situation like Tyler Alexander was,
02:56you can't afford to make a mistake.
02:58Yeah.
02:58If you're going to make a mistake, it's going to be a ball in the dirt.
03:01Yes.
03:02Yes.
03:02Or, like, if you throw a sweeper moving away or whatever, just where you're like,
03:08well, there's no way he's going to get good contact on it.
03:10Exactly.
03:11If he gets a piece of it, it's just going to be a foul off or whatever.
03:13So, yeah, that was really unfortunate.
03:15And I know Skip is obviously taking some of the heat on that.
03:21And then for the 9-0-3, could we just trade for Alvarez because he is the only person in
03:27the world
03:28who can hit in this park well, especially when he's like, man, I really like playing in this ballpark.
03:32It does kind of feel like maybe you should consider that.
03:36But it's a disappointing loss, not only because you lose to Houston, but also Houston is terrible.
03:43Yeah.
03:43Like, don't get it twisted.
03:45And you might be like, oh, I think there's only a game back of the Rangers.
03:48Yeah.
03:49Well, you can draw your own conclusions off of that.
03:51But I will once again say that Houston is terrible.
03:54And now, at best, you're going to be able to split the series.
03:58And that's followed by getting swept by the Angels, who are also terrible and also in your division.
04:03So you've played two of the worst teams in baseball, who both happen to be in your division, and you've
04:09lost five of six.
04:11That's a horrifying combination of things I just said.
04:14It really is.
04:15And that's why letting Jordan Alvarez be the one person that beats you is one thing.
04:20That's fine.
04:21But when Mike Burroughs is going seven innings against you, making you look foolish, only giving up five hits and
04:29a couple of earned runs, that's the area that concerns me the most.
04:34It just disappoints me.
04:35Because I can live with Jordan Alvarez beating my baseball team.
04:39Right.
04:39Because he does that to everybody.
04:40Like you said, this Astros team is not what they used to be.
04:45And their pitching has been horrible.
04:47Their pitching is awful.
04:48By the way, Burroughs, 5.75 ERA going into that game.
04:52Is that good?
04:53No!
04:54Well, I mean, I guess then we were getting no hit by a guy who had an 8-plus ERA,
05:00so...
05:00And a guy that made his Major League debut to close out the final six outs.
05:04Oh, and, you know, all six of them, perfect, by the way.
05:08Not great.
05:09Not great.
05:10The centralizing part for me personally is just, not only is the pitching kind of ebbing and flowing right now,
05:16which you expect throughout the season.
05:18You've seen it.
05:19You saw it last year with Jacob DeGrom.
05:20He had a few weeks where he just didn't quite have it.
05:23We talked about the long ball just a second ago.
05:26That's okay.
05:26That's where your offense picks you up.
05:28They elevate you.
05:29That's where you have the eight-run first inning just a couple of days ago now, where you're like, that's
05:34a team that understands the assignment.
05:37When things aren't all equal, the other side lifts up and elevates and says, we got you.
05:43The Astros are figuring out how to do that right now.
05:46Now, trotting out a bunch of starters with ERAs north of five, Jordan Alvarez is like, don't worry, guys.
05:52I got you.
05:53You're not playing complimentary baseball right now.
05:56This team just can't live with prosperity in one direction or another.
06:00Whenever your bullpen is exceeding expectations for the island of misfit toys that they are, you can't get a lick
06:07of offense.
06:08And that's why yesterday we talked about, oh, does an offensive explosion change anything?
06:14And I think we were pretty much in agreement, no.
06:16If you have a two-week run of really good baseball, I'm not saying you have to be undefeated or
06:22anything like that.
06:23If you have a two-week run of really good baseball, then I'll be like, all right, here we go.
06:27We've really got something going now.
06:29But from the 2-1-4, us getting crushed by horrible teams feels like last season when we went up
06:35against other teams, bad pitchers, and suddenly they look like Cy Young contenders.
06:39And that is a very fair way to put it.
06:43And there's like a little part of me that's glad that's been spotlighted a little bit more because otherwise you're
06:50just like, oh, we went up against Christopher Sanchez.
06:52I get it.
06:52He's unstoppable.
06:53But, like, not every time you were getting shut down was because you were going against some wizard of a
07:00pitcher.
07:00All right?
07:01And so this feels like it's really crystallized that in the last week or so.
07:05And then from the 9-7-2, are we sure Skip was the way to go?
07:09So I'm not going to bail on that yet just because you go back to his first year with a
07:13Marlins, and he did such an incredible job before him and the ownership group had just a fundamental difference of
07:20opinion about how the team should be run.
07:23And so, I mean, how do you judge it?
07:26Because I still think right now I go kind of almost trickle down all of the way.
07:32I'll go ownership, then front office, then your manager, then your hitting coach.
07:38Because I go back to the thing with the hitting coach.
07:40You have tried variations of this for the last three years.
07:44I do not think it's just one person who's causing all of these issues.
07:48You've had co-hitting coaches.
07:51You've had three hitting coaches now.
07:53You changed hitting coaches.
07:55And guess what?
07:56Your offense still struggles.
07:57So I'm not saying he's off the hook, but I'm not going to lay it all at the feet of
08:00the hitting coach or co-hitting coach.
08:03He's not absolved from all blame.
08:06He definitely has a part in it, some decisions, and he'll be the first to tell you that I shouldn't
08:12have made this move.
08:12I shouldn't have let this guy stay out there too long.
08:15What have you, the way that I refrain from putting too much blame on Skip Schumacher's play is I'm kind
08:25of looking at this Rangers team in the same way that I was looking at Jason Kidd in the Mavericks
08:29last year with Cooper Flagg is this was a team built for somebody else.
08:35Right.
08:35This was a team built for Bruce Bochy.
08:38This roster of personnel, there's a lot of dudes like, let's just be honest, Bochy, he would even be the
08:44first to tell you.
08:45He didn't really like causing chaos on the base paths.
08:48He didn't have a ton of athletes per se.
08:50He wasn't looking to small ball it up.
08:51No, not at all.
08:52He wanted to make solid contact with the baseball and he wanted to drive in runs, not create runs.
08:58And that's okay because it worked for a year and it won you a championship.
09:03Now you hand the keys over to a younger manager who has said, even when he took the job, his
09:09first interview on this station, he said, yeah, like I want to steal bases.
09:12I want to create runs.
09:14I want to manufacture runs.
09:15How do you do that with incredible athletes?
09:19Wyatt Langford fits that category, but he gets hurt.
09:22And even before then, he wasn't exactly living up to that expectation.
09:26But then you start looking, you're like, okay, who are the other run creators on this team?
09:31Corey Seager is not legging out a triple.
09:33Nope.
09:33You know, Jake Berger is not doing any of that.
09:36You don't want him to because he's going to pull something in the process.
09:39Jake Berger is not a burner on the base paths.
09:42You just start naming these guys up and down the batting order and you say, that's a Bruce Bochy kind
09:48of run scoring team.
09:50That's not a Skip Schumacher way of doing things.
09:53So how do you alleviate that?
09:55You spend money.
09:56So that's where I take your approach, Kevin, top down goes ownership.
10:00It goes general manager.
10:02Then it goes to the manager and all of the assistant coaches and position coaches, because right now this team
10:08isn't exactly tailor made to Skip Schumacher.
10:11Now, a good manager is going to find ways to win.
10:13He found a way to get an eight-run inning just a couple of nights ago.
10:17Like, he's shown that he can do things the right way with this group of guys.
10:22It's just not always going to work because they're not necessarily the right prototype yet.
10:29And I've talked about this a couple of times.
10:31I will stick by this.
10:32It is unfortunate that, like, the Rangers right now are not in the National League.
10:36Do you know if the Rangers were in the National League, the closest they would be in any of the
10:41divisions is nine games out.
10:43That's the closest they would be.
10:46And instead, right now, they're two games out of the lead in the West, and I think they're one and
10:52a half back in the wild card.
10:54So I see all of the text.
10:57This is not a good Rangers team right now.
11:01This is not a good Rangers team right now by any stretch of the imagination.
11:06But what is going to be the comeback that you're going to get?
11:09Your two best hitters are out, and you're still close.
11:12So, like, as much as you see it, I see it, Jet sees it, everybody can see it, nothing's going
11:20to happen on that front for a while.
11:23Because, well, first of all, you don't necessarily get the added trade value that you would think if you trade
11:27at the beginning of June as opposed to, like, late July.
11:30You'd think they'd kick in a little extra something for that, for that extra month and a half.
11:34You don't necessarily pull that down.
11:36But also, you know the Rangers are going to wait it out and be like, hey, if we're this close,
11:40why would you possibly sell?
11:42And I understand that logic to a point, unless you've watched the team play.
11:48And then, how could you not think that at this exact moment?
11:52And it's an interesting thought.
11:55Obviously, we have no way of knowing.
11:56If you were in the National League, how does that perspective change from a team-building perspective?
12:02If you are sitting here already, at best, nine games back, are you kind of like, well, we'll start kind
12:11of having those tough conversations behind closed doors?
12:14Or are you still getting that same mentality from Chris Young and company?
12:18Which, if you are, good on them for being consistent.
12:21But I think the conversation and the narrative behind closed doors starts changing if you are that far back at
12:27this point in the season.
12:28It's just a weird reality that the American League is god-awful right now.
12:32It really is.
12:33And by the way, maybe this is another conversation for another day.
12:36From the 682, the ownership did spend, the GM spent stupid money.
12:40And so, I would take issue with that.
12:42If you're talking about four years ago with Seager and Simeon, like, those contracts look really bad now.
12:51But at the same point, you would not have won the World Series without them.
12:54So, I will always kind of grant a pass on that, even if it's not working out for you right
12:59now.
12:59But what about since then?
13:01Like, how long has it been since you really felt like you've spent that money?
13:04I've talked about it time and again.
13:05You're about $85 million selling or spending under where you should be per your slot in the MLB markets.
13:14$85 million per year.
13:17So, I do not agree with the idea that the ownership has spent commensurate with what they should.
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