Rangers relieve us of our sanity

How did we ever get to this point?

We actually expect a World Series Championship or Bust season out of the Rangers. The world has got to be hurtling toward a bloody big bang.

Then again, the Saints recently won a Super Bowl, so apparently it's true that all things absolutely are possible.

This much is certain: The Rangers are but a sliver from having the best record in the Major Leagues here at the halfway point. They've managed that considerable accomplishment despite a pitching staff that's collectively spent more time with Hawkeye Pierce and Margaret Houlahan than on the mound.

The Angels are the hottest team in the Majors, and have been for two months. Yet the Rangers lead the Halos by four games despite our boys swinging the bat like they're using a seeing-eye dog.

And the Rangers are winning without wilting, even though the glare they're enduring is now three-fold from previous seasons. Compounding the deathly home heat are both the world's expectations and a Bull's Eye that every other team is zinging at with all their combined vitriol.

The reason for the Rangers' success? The will of Nolan Ryan and the wizardry of Ron Washington. There's the combination that forms the basis for our heretofore insane anticipation.

It's true that Washington is often guilty of being a bit too much in love with his starters. Everyone in the hemisphere but Wash, it seems, knows that Colby Lewis and Derek Holland are 5-inning pitchers. Sometimes they surprise, but for the most part those two have an expiration label as obvious as milk. But Wash will milk 'em into the seventh as often as he can. More times than not that means another run or more for our boys to overcome. His record not withstanding, Matt Harrison is often in that same ilk. And Roy Oswalt? Sometimes you want him to pitch underhanded!

Washington also confounds those of us who obviously know more than him by tinkering too much with his bullpen. Sheeesh. When an arm has just mowed down the side, why yank it for another? Leave that pitcher in there to see if he can get another precious out or two first before signaling to the pen. Most of those relief arms are good for more than 15 pitches at a time. Wash watches over those relievers like a miser.

The Rangers didn't do themselves any favors in the Fantastic Expectations Department by blasting off the season with a 15-4 record in the first three weeks. They were hitting the ball so well they were scoring touchdowns instead of runs. They looked like the '27 Yankees reincarnated. Their early success only served to make that Bull's Eye flashing neon.

Then in mid-May the inevitable for a 162-game schedule happened: the Rangers became downright average at the plate. By June, they were pedestrian. Only their best all-around player every inning of every game, Adrian Beltre, kept them from being pathetic. Our batters suddenly began watching two-strike pitches come whistling down the middle like they were spectators. The concept of trying to stick a bat out to foul off and stay alive seemed as foreign to Ranger hitters as Ho Chi Minh.

Still, they've won.

Wash and Ryan give the Rangers backbone, and scrap, and an almost-indefatigable will to win. A walk, a steal, a passed ball, and a sac fly produces a run without a hit. It makes the difference on a night when they can't hit a watermelon.

The Rangers ruled the West last season with bullwhip cruelty, dominating their division like a dictator. Their rivals on the left coast have taken serious umbrage, and began bowing up for our boys this season like each series is a playoff. The A's, M's and Angels owned a collective 12-10 mark over Texas until two weeks ago when the Rangers clawed out three of four from the Athletics to even the mark. The Rangers and faithful exhaled, but the message is clear. Notice has been served from the rest of the West that it ain't gonna be so easy this year.

Ditto for the other second-tier teams. Padres, Rockies, Astros. It's hardly ever been a romp, but even when it has taken extra innings, the Rangers have found a way to consistently beat those teams all the other winners are whupping with ease. Except for a hiccup in Chicago (the curse of Obama?), the Rangers have found a way to win each and every series over the past 40 days, home and away. The Angels are bedeviled. They can't make up any ground, though they've played twice as good.

Now comes the second half -- the half of Greatest Expectations. The schedule will get harder, beginning with a date in LA on the 20th of this month. The heat will get hotter. August looms. The Bull's Eye will get bigger, with the media lathering it on. The competition will get nastier, featuring a whole lot more of the West and those beasts in the East, the Yankees, et al.

But the Rangers' pitching staff will get well, bidding Radar and Hot Lips "goodbye". The team's bats will come back. No swat with that kind of talent will remain in such a funk. Perhaps most importantly, however, Wash's bunch understands what to expect. The Rangers know how to win under such pressure. And that is the problem.

We actually believe they will. Or so we hope, and pray, and knock on wood, and avoid stepping on sidewalk cracks. Meanwhile, we all ignore the cracks in our head that really, truly believe this is the year the Rangers win the World Series!

Say that last part again. OMG! We are nuts. But that's what one strike away with a two-run lead in back-to-back innings will do to you. It will drive you crazy.

J. David Barron is a staff columnist for Star Community Newspapers. Reach him at dbarron@starlocalnews.com

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