Texas Rangers: Looking Forward Instead of Backward

ARLINGTON, Tex. — The Texas Rangers ended their season with a 4-0 loss to the Oakland Athletics Sunday. Which spells relief for Texas Rangers fans.

Under normal circumstances, well normal if you’ve been following the Texas Rangers since at least 2010, game #162 brings excitement, as well as hope for some postseason action. However, game 162 of the 2014 season brought on entirely different emotions for Rangers fans, well at least for me it did.

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This September had me wanting something. Something that in all honesty I can’t remember EVER wanting. I wanted the Texas Rangers season to END.

I wanted it to be over. I wanted the players off the field. I wanted the A’s out of our house. I wanted the coaches out of our baseball sanctuary. I wanted the umps out. In fact, if I had my way EVERYONE would be banned from the ballpark….well at least for a week.

Basically, I wanted to hit the reset button as quick as possible.

So, as much as I love, and I do mean LOVE the Texas Rangers, I could not wait for the last out in game 162. Everyone knew what the last out meant. No more Texas Rangers heartache.

It meant that the Rangers’ 2014 season was finished, which meant General Manager Jon Daniels & Co. could but this crummy season behind them and start looking ahead.

JD could start planning moves, countermoves, interviews and everything in between to get the Texas Rangers ready for the 2015 season. And based on what Jon Daniels had to say to the media after Sunday’s game indicates that he, too, wants to put the season behind him and look ahead.

"We left ourselves exposed,” Daniels said. “I didn’t expect the injuries to come with quite the frequency and severity as they did, but they did. And we should have been prepared to handle it, and we weren’t. We fell short for a variety of reasons, no one thing in particular. It starts with myself, decisions I’ve made and we made as an organization. Certainly at the lowest point of the summer, when kind of the writing was on the wall and we were out of it, disappointing, and I think, at times, we were embarrassed.” (T.R. Sullivan, Rangers.com)"

Daniels knows that the club’s first priority is filling the manager position. There are three candidates within the club in line for an interview, current interim skipper Tim Bogar, current Rangers pitching coach Mike Maddux, and current Round Rock Express (AAA) Steve Buechele. There has been mention of JD interviewing a few more people outside of the organization, but according to T.R. Sullivan

"Daniels has already talked to other organizations about possible candidates, but he has not formally requested permission to interview anyone.”"

Next comes getting the team back in fighting form. Not only making sure everyone gets and stays healthy, but also making decisions for the starting rotation and the bullpen. JD, will also have to make a few tough decisions for positional players. Jurickson Profar or Rougned Odor at second base? How about keeping Robinson Chirinos as the number one catcher or should he bring in an older player who has more experience?

These are only some of the things I hope Daniels will have already decided before Spring Training starts.

I think having swept three teams in the month of September, yes Texas did do that, gave Texas Rangers fans a glimmer of hope at the end of an extremely long tunnel. I know it did for me.

“I expect that we’re going to win next year,” Daniels said. “The years of hoping and praying are gone. That’s are expectation, that’s what we’re going to build towards, and that’s the culture and atmosphere we’re going to create, ownership straight down through the organization.”

I am happy that I no longer have to stress about Texas Rangers baseball.

For now, I’ll sit back and enjoy the postseason games with faith that our beloved Texas Rangers will be there in 2015. And, I hope you do, too.

Only about 142 days until pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training, according to SpringTrainingCountdown.com, and I can’t wait!

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