Homecomings.
So Josh and Wash are going back home, and Dave’s just going home.
We all saw that coming, right? Along with a 2-1 win in Fenway authored on the mound by a 30th-round pick making his first big league start (and just his fifth as a pro) against a team he’d never faced; a 27th-round pick; a supplemental first-rounder who’s been in the big leagues the last four years and in AAA five of the last six; a minor league free agent; and a waiver claim who’d been another club’s 30th-round pick.
And starring a Rule 5 pick who did his thing offensively and defensively and whose OPS now lags only Prince Fielder’s and Mitch Moreland’s among Rangers regulars.
Hours earlier, Josh and Joey homered in the same game, for the first time and, this year, likely the last.
There will be more.
Phil Klein, the lead candidate to finish 2015 as the Rangers’ unlikeliest starting pitcher, threw nearly 70 percent of his 81 pitches for strikes — and was efficient enough that he pitched into the sixth, which Texas couldn’t have expected. He started off 14 of the 23 Red Sox he faced with a strike, and induced more swinging strikes (8) than his Boston counterpart, fireballing righthander Joe Kelly, who missed only seven bats over his 108 pitches.
Klein will probably get the ball again on Monday in Cleveland — going back home, incidentally — possibly backed by Josh Hamilton, and by then Matt Harrison could be on his way to Frisco, where he’ll assume Hamilton’s post–game spread duties.
None of it was predictable, other than Letterman’s retirement, which we knew about a year ago, when the American League’s current second-leading hitter was headed toward season-ending neck fusion surgery that had some people concerned about his career.
None of it was predictable, so it won’t surprise me at this point if Keith Law’s prediction last night that Florida high school shortstop Brendan Rodgers, thought by many to be the top candidate to go 1.1 in the draft 18 days from now, falls to Texas and is announced as the Rangers’ pick at 1.4.
If Rodgers lands here, the speculation on where his path will lead will be fascinating, as he’ll get to the big leagues well before Elvis Andrus’s contract expires, and even if Josh Hamilton is gone by then, Fielder and Shin-Soo Choo won’t be, and neither will Harrison or Derek Holland or Martin Perez, at least contractually. I still hold out hope that Yu Darvish’s next contract will be in Texas, too.
And hey there, Chi Chi and Jake and Luis.
When Rodgers gets to the big leagues, if it’s in Texas he’ll be teammates with Nomar Mazara and Gallo, who Baseball Prospectus’s Ryan Parker suggested yesterday are “the best 1-2 prospect punch of any system.”
If Jorge Alfaro is hitting seventh, cool.
Rougned Odor: .318/.464/.818 with Round Rock since his demotion. Maybe more startling: five walks and two strikeouts.
See ya soon, Roogie.
Probably before Wash is back in Arlington on June 23.
Hugging it out with Josh during BP at Globe Life Park.
Just like we all imagined.



