By Bill Begley
A chance to end a decade-long postseason drought was there for the taking, and for the first time this season the Texas Rangers lost a series to the AL West leaders, the Los Angeles Angels.
In a nutshell, that means – not officially, but for all intents and purposes – the Rangers again will be watching the playoffs from home, while the Angels are about to win their third straight AL West title.
LA beat Texas 10-5 in Arlington on Sunday to take a 7.5 game lead over its nearest competitor in the West, though that is a smaller deficit than the 8 games the Rangers would need to make up to catch up to Boston in the AL wildcard race.
Texas had its future in its hands – a nine-game home stand, including six games against the bottom two teams in the AL West (Seattle and Oakland) before the Angels came to Arlington – and the Rangers promptly went 2-7 and scored just 19 runs over that span. More than half of that anemic total, 10 runs, came in the two wins. Texas was shut out four times.
That is the definition of gagging.
The Angels, meanwhile, managed to get through a 7-game road trip 3-4, and that included a stop in New York for a makeup game and a 3-game stop in Boston before coming to Texas. Not a great mark, but not an easy trip and more than enough to take control of the race heading into the final two weeks of the season.
How did the much-anticipated stretch battle – with Texas traveling to California for four games to close September – fizzle out so quickly?
3 Up (Angels)
Joe Saunders: Jered Weaver has been pedestrian, at best, in his past few starts, and closer Brian Fuentes has blown two saves (and suffered two losses) in the past week, but LA lefthander Saunders has been rock-solid. He is 5-1 with a 3.86 ERA over his last seven starts – including a 4-0 record and 2.10 ERA in his last five starts. Every team needs a pitcher to step up and take the lead when the postseason comes calling (ala, Curt “Bloody Sock” Schilling). It looks like Saunders is auditioning for that role.
Torii Hunter: He missed the first half of August, but the veteran outfielder has heated up since his return and is beginning to show a little of the pop he exhibited before the All-Star break. Hunter is hitting .325 since mid-August, though his slugging percentage is just .480 since the All-Star break (vs .558 in the first half). That may be changing – Hunter has two home runs in the past week, and is a veteran who knows what it takes to ramp up the juice for the postseason.
Intangibles: The Angels are just days away from becoming the first team to win three straight AL West titles since the “Bash Brothers” Oakland A’s of 1988-90. Somehow, LA pulled it off even though Vladmir Guerrero has been on-again, off-again physically and dealing with an offense that has struggled in September. But, the fact is, a number of players have stepped up and filled the holes created by the extended absences of Guerrero and Hunter. Is part of that the leadership of Mike Scioscia?
3 Down (Rangers)
Derek Holland: Part of the surge that kept the Rangers in the West/AL wildcard race was the maturity of the rookie lefthander. But, of late, youth (and the extra work of the long MLB season) seems to have had an effect on Holland. He is 4-6 and has allowed 12 home runs in his last 10 starts, and it’s worse than that sounds. Holland was 4-1 in the first five of those starts, and he’d lowered his ERA from 5.56 to 4.72. When he took the loss in Sunday’s games, Holland fell to 0-5 in his last five starts, and he has a 12.38 ERA over that span. Now 7-12 with a 6.17 ERA, Holland has the stuff, but may have run out of gas.
Nelson Cruz: The slugging outfielder took Josh Hamilton’s place in the All-Star Home Run Derby, and put the kind of numbers up in the first half that made him more than a token replacement. But, Cruz has cooled of late, with just four hits in his last 34 at-bats – a big part of the homestand brownout by the Rangers’ offense. Cruz still has very respectable numbers overall (.262 average, with 32 homers and 73 RBIs), but did not do well in the must-win series and is just 7-for-30 with two RBIs against the Angels this season. “Clutch” means hitting when it matters.
Intangibles: The Rangers had the pitching it always seems to be missing (led by Scott Feldman’s 17-5 season) and improved its overall team defense, but injuries prevented a consistent effort all season long. The only thing that happened regularly was Josh Hamilton’s trips to the DL, and he was joined for extended periods by closer Frank Francisco and, now, third baseman Michael Young. Still, as little as two weeks ago, Texas trailed the Angels by fewer than four games … and could not put together a final push. The Rangers will win the season series with LA, no matter what happens later this week, but it is for naught. Again. Is that the residue of a decade of not meeting expectations?
