Turn and face the strain?
The silver lining when your team is struggling through a string of bad play, whether it's a pluckless veteran NBA team that retreats predictably into its shell when it counts every April, or a baseball team beset by a contagious rash of plays unmade, runners left in scoring position, and heartbreaking losses (Texas has led in 15 of its 21 games), is that it's more likely that changes will be made.
The risk with teams that muddle along without ever exceeding expectations but without really falling terribly short of them is that they tend not to take risks. While that's never going to be a real issue with Mark Cuban or Jon Daniels, neither of whose guts can ever be questioned, it was last season's disappointing first half that prompted the trades of Mark Teixeira, Eric Gagné, and Kenny Lofton which accelerated this franchise's progress dramatically – and in that sense, thank goodness for the slow start in 2007, without which we probably don't get to enjoy what David Murphy brings to this team or imagine how Max Ramirez and Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Elvis Andrus and Neftali Feliz and Engel Beltre and others have a chance to make things a lot better here in the next few years.
I'm not sure if there are imminent changes (or if so, what type) in store for the Rangers, who have dropped 10 of 12, but you have to believe that it's at least more likely that there will be.
Despite what the columnists in town might think, I know that there's a huge segment of loyal Texas Rangers fans who care a lot about what goes on with this team, who are in this for the long haul. (There's no other way to explain, for instance, that Scott's and my mailing list has not only increased by 260 members [to nearly 4,000] in the last four months, but has actually had 93 new members since the season began, and only five drop off the list, amid a month of disappointing win-loss results.)
We're in this through thick and thin, and not necessarily any less passionately during the thin.
I'm not suggesting I know what changes might be in store or when, or that I know what changes should be in store. But as an unconditional fan of this team, and as a believer in Jon Daniels, if there are changes to be made, I have confidence that they will be made for the right reasons and with the long-term health of this franchise in mind.
And that, if nothing else, has me as keyed in to this team every day as I would be if its 7-14 record were flipped.
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