Weekend at Bernie's.
The last time the Rangers swept a Yankees series in New York was closer in time to Bernie Williams robbing Rusty Greer than to Bernie’s number being retired.
It happened on May 16, 17, and 18, 2003, with wins recorded by R.A. Dickey, Ismael Valdez, and John Thomson, and Alex Rodriguez wearing the road uniform. But it followed three straight losses in Boston, and that’s not the only reason that the Rangers’ last sweep in New York to improve the win-loss to 19-24 feels a whole lot different from this weekend’s, which raised the club’s record to 21-23.
When the Rangers were rolling out a starting five of Valdez, Thomson, Joaquin Benoit, Alan Benes, and rookie Colby Lewis (7.30 ERA) on that East Coast swing a dozen years ago, it was partly due to Chan Ho Park and Ryan Drese sitting on the disabled list, which is far different from Yu Darvish, Derek Holland, Martin Perez, and Matt Harrison being sidelined.
In this run of five in Boston and New York, starters Phil Klein, Wandy Rodriguez, Lewis, Nick Martinez, and Yovani Gallardo each recorded a win, which Rick Gosselin (Dallas Morning News) points out is the first time Texas has gotten five straight victories from its starting pitchers since August 4-9, 2013 (Holland, Perez, Darvish, Alexi Ogando, Matt Garza), a stretch that saw the club close from 3.5 games out of first in the AL West to a virtual tie with the A’s.
That’s different, too, as today Oakland is baseball’s worst team, and the Rangers still have 7.5 games to make up in the West.
But only 4.5 in the Wild Card standings.
Two Wild Card teams faced off in the World Series last year. Just gotta get hot at the right time.
Think about what this roster could look like four months from now, compared to today.
Just over a week ago, Texas hosted the Indians, who at the time were close to the worst club in the league, and proceeded to drop the first two games of the series in ugly fashion.
Today the two clubs open a set of three in Cleveland, and if current win streaks are the measure they’re the two hottest clubs in baseball.
Which arguably puts less pressure on Josh Hamilton than there might have been a week ago, or certainly when the Rangers made the decision to bring him back to the organization. He’ll likely be in the starting lineup today — and if you’re concerned about the old “day game” horror in Hamilton’s game, last year he hit .310/.388/.466 during the day (.254/.318/.404 at night) — and you should expect that Leonys Martin is going to see his playing time cut back a bit, and Shin-Soo Choo get a little extra rest, because Hamilton certainly isn’t going to take all of Delino DeShields’s reps.
It’s still sort of incredible that Houston, all circumstances considered, chose not to protect DeShields this winter and ended up selling its Rule 5 roster vacancy for $25,000.
Speaking of the dollars, Texas owes Prince Fielder about $17.5 million the rest of 2015, and then $18 million annually from 2016 through 2020. So once this season ends, the Rangers are into Fielder, currently the AL’s leading hitter (.358/.412/.551) and no longer insistent on playing everyday defensively (and, according to Buster Olney [ESPN]: “ . . . came back this year invested in this team . . . [t]aken on leadership role”), for five years and $90 million.
If he were on the open market today, how much would Fielder fetch?
It was a remarkable weekend in New York for Fielder, who went 8 for 14 with three home runs and nine RBI — the first time in his tremendous 11-year career that he’s put together numbers at that level in any three-game span — and on the strength of his three multi-hit games off Yankees pitching he leads the Major Leagues in that category for the season (an incredible 21 of his 44 games).
Though he came through big last night minutes after the Yankees retired Williams’s number, doubling in Choo to get the Rangers on the board first, things quickly went south. New York got to Gallardo in the bottom of the first — Elvis Andrus error, line drive single to center (runner cut down at third), line drive single to center, rifled groundout to first, single to center scoring two, base on balls — but after that ugly sequence Gallardo retired 15 of 17.
One of the two who reached did so on an error.
The other to reach was promptly erased on a double play grounder.
That was Good Yovani, and if he’s your number three or four as he was acquired to be, right on.
There’s one good way to make sure you don’t have to beat the Yankees’ ridiculous tandem of Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller (a combined two runs on 12 hits allowed in 43.1 innings, with 68 strikeouts), and the Rangers managed to do it this weekend, taking leads into the late innings each day.
Yesterday, once Gallardo’s day was done, Jeff Banister closed things out with a 22-year-old 12th-round pick who was facing junior college hitters three years ago, a minor league free agent, a pitcher Texas acquired for a player to be named later or cash, and a waiver claim.
Collectively, Keone Kela and Ross Ohlendorf and Sam Freeman and Shawn Tolleson went 3-2-0-0-1-3, maybe not Betances-Miller flashy but responding to Banister’s bullpen challenge in a big way.
This whole team seems to have responded big to Banister. He’s come in here and removed definition from roles — and not only in the bullpen — in a way that his predecessor was never quick to do. That’s not necessarily a criticism of Ron Washington’s methods — he’s the greatest manager this franchise has ever had, and his faith in and loyalty toward his players was a big reason why — but Banister has shown a willingness to shake things up, and set the bar higher for some players than even they might have expected for themselves, and it’s working.
And as for how Banister sorts out the outfield mix with Hamilton’s arrival — today DeShields and Hamilton (hitting fifth) are in center and left, with Martin sitting — I really like the idea of keeping veterans fresh, keeping role players on their toes, and going to battle with a bench that can be a weapon, something that Rangers teams haven’t always featured, even in the best years.
Minutes ago, Fox Sports national columnist Jon Morosi tweeted: “Rangers have scored the most runs in MLB this month. Could easily see them becoming a Wild Card contender.”
Lots of baseball to go. And one of the hottest teams in baseball, coming off a heck of a week that started in Boston and finished with a bang in New York, starts the process of getting deeper.