Once Again, Youth Leading Texas Rangers

The Texas Rangers crushed the Detroit Tigers yesterday in Mo Town. The hero’s of the game were not Adrian Beltre, Elvis Andrus or another veteran player, they were rookie pitcher Nick Martinez and rookie second baseman Rougned Odor.

“It feels good, it gives me a little confidence,” Odor said. “I just want to be a part of the team and have the other guys feel they can have confidence in me.”

We also can’t forget that

Donnie Murphy

had a good game his first game back off the DL and that the Rangers have yet to lose when Chris Gimemez is behind the dish, but Odor had two triples and five RBI in the Texas Rangers 12-2 victory.

Nick Martinez took a team that is scoring a lot of runs and have the three highest batting averages in the American League (Ian Kinsler, Victor Martinez and Miguel Cabrera) and held them to just one run. I wrote an article about Chris Gimenez yesterday saying how good he seems to be doing in replacement of J.P Arencibia, and that still holds true after yesterday’s game. Arencibia had 8 hits in his 66 plate appearances and was batting .133, while Gimenez has 5 hits in 14 plate appearances and has a batting average of .385.

And speaking of the two triples and four hits by Rougned, he did something that has not been done in a while, according to Buster Olney.

ELIAS: Rougned Odor is first player under 21 to have 4 hits and 2 triples in one game since Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby on June 28, 1916.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) May 25, 2014

Although the collection of injuries the Texas Rangers have accumulated is quite impressive, and I mean that in a bad way, sometimes it’s not a bad thing to go with youth. Odor and Martinez are not going to have those kind of games every night, but the thing about youth is that they can be brilliant from time to time and that is really fun to watch. I am not going to sit here and predict that the Texas Rangers are going to win the west with their new, young lineup, but i am saying that there are going to be some very entertaining games along the way.