Rangers

Week four of the 2008 baseball season is upon us and where are our Rangers? That's right last place in the AL and only one game up on Washington for the worst record in the MLB. What's more amazing is that except for maybe 4 games the starting pitching has been really good. So what has led to such a poor start to yet another season? It's got to be something in the clubhouse. I'm a Ticket P1, 1310 AM, and heard a great rant from The Old Gray Wolf on Monday and I'm as upset about what the Rangers are doing as he is.

So far this season we have witnessed one bone-head play after another on defense, and on the bases. I think we lead the MLB in errors after today. A team that is pressing at the plate can't afford these mental mistakes, so where does the blame reside? I was all for giving Washington a break, but that was then. His whole philosophy was playing sound fundamental baseball, and they have demonstrated a total lack of playing fundamental baseball. Not only that but some of the stupid game management decisions are killing me. The peak of which was Laird DHing on Saturday. What are you kidding me? And I thought Broussard was a spare at the beginning of the season, but then I warmed to him a little, but after the last week, he's a huge SPARE and sucks especially on defense. Then there's Hank Blalock who refuses to hit the ball down the third baseline when the overshift is put on by the opposing team. He could get a hit and possibly a double if he would just drag bunt the ball right down the line. Even if he's hitting clean up, he should be working on that OBP.

And that leads me to the fact that John Daniels has to go also. Two starting pitchers that are doing well that the Rangers screwed up on are Danks and Armando Galaragga. They didn't even get anything for Galaragga since he was waived at the end of spring training. And don't even get me started on the Chris Young trade. And then you pay Ben Broussard $3mil this year when Boston has Casey at $800k. Makes me ill.

I think that Nolan Ryan has his work cut out for him, he needs to clean house from the front office on down. But who do you hire especially this early into the season? I think the manager and bench coach have to go now and maybe even more of the coaching staff. Two guys I'd love to see on the bench in some capacity are Will Clark and Rusty Greer. I know that Rusty has been managing a college summer league organization, but I really think we need someone with his mind set in the clubhouse. Maybe Rusty isn't ready to be the manager, but he would be a good bench coach. It'll be interesting to see what Ryan does with this mess. Better luck next time Wash....