Saturday’s Spring Training recap-Staying optimistic

Mar 3, 2013; Surprise, AZ, USA; A general view of Surprise Stadium from the left center grass seating area during the eighth inning between the Seattle Mariners and Texas Rangers. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Today marked one full week of spring training for the Texas Rangers.  The first week had some injuries, setbacks and some good news.

As the Rangers start a new week tomorrow, they’ll be without their primary catcher.

Catcher Geovany Soto arrived back in Dallas today to have his left ankle looked at.  After weighing his options, he decided to have surgery to correct this issue, rather than deal with the pain and having shots throughout the season.

Also, the Rangers will continue to wait on more details about the back issues Matt Harrison is dealing with.  The good news is that MRI doesn’t show anything, but he’ll see a specialist on Monday to get more information.  So far, no one in the front office is concerned, they are pretty much in a wait and see what happens.  But, in the mean time, there have been rumors that the Rangers are interested in Erwin Santana.

Some good news, Jurickson Profar continues to improve.  He’s been swinging a bat, and is still on pace to be the Rangers starting second baseman.

Adrian Beltre took some batting practice to day doing some situational hitting. Beltre continues to look good during spring training.

Richard Durrett managed to catch a clip of Elvis Andrus trashing talking and doing some cheering during batting practice.  To me, this is a good sign for the team.  This helps show they are having fun and being a team.  That is one important thing to get them through 162 games.

Yu Darvish continues to show his stuff at spring training.  The Texas Rangers ace has looks sharp, leaner and ready for the a game.

Colby Lewis continues to look good also, which is good news since the condition of Matt Harrison is unknown.  But there is no time table yet for Lewis.  He will pitch in the intra-squad game coming up this week.  The main thing the Texas Rangers will be looking for from Lewis is how well his velocity, and command is.  Mike Maddux continues to say that Lewis is doing very well and if anyone can do it, it’s Lewis.

Another good story from Saturday was some thing that Martin Perez started.  He started a social media campaign to draw attention to the rising civil unrest there.  Recent violence is to blame for over 100 injuries and several deaths.  There are several Rangers from there, that include Elvis Andrus, Wilmer Font and Joseph Ortiz.  Several players joined in the picture to show support

Even though there have been several injuries during spring training, and a surgery.  Jurickson Profar will be the Opening day second baseman, Geovany Soto should be back in time to get 2 weeks of spring training time in and make the season opener and news for Harrison is still positive.  Spring training is 6 weeks long, plenty of time to recovery and work out these small issues.  So, Rangers fans should stay optimistic.