Texas Rangers: Hello, And Welcome To Clinch Day

That is right, the Texas Rangers have a an opportunity to clinch today when they take on the Oakland A’s. How sweet it will be to be able to “win and clinch” instead of clinching on an off day.

So get your champagne goggles ready because its is going down in Oakland tonight! Texas Rangers will send Cole Hamels out to the mound to try and win this game and snag that division crown. Hamels has struggled mightily during the month of September but he is the type of player who seems like can hit that on switch in pressure situations.

This game will be a great opportunity to see if fans should start to panic about Hamels performance as of late, 9.88 ERA in September. He has worked himself out of the Cy Young conversation but he still has a record of 14-5. Hamels will be going up against Kendall Graveman who is 10-10 in 2016 with an ERA of 4.21 but has a September ERA of 6.48.

Two pitchers who have had sub par months but like I said, Hamels is the ace and has that it factor when it matters most. Hopefully the Rangers have actually found their scouting report on the A’s Kris Davis who has 10 homers in 16 games against them this year. I think that report may have been left on the bus or something for those games, maybe they’ll just walk him every at bat.

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Now the player to watch for the Texas Rangers in this one should be Elvis Andrus who has a team best .326 batting average against the A’s this year. Andrus is having a career year and it would be special for him to be the player of this game after his fielding errors to end the season last year.

It is unfortunate that the Texas Rangers did not have an opportunity to clinch the division in front of the home field crowd. It may be really weird to clinch it in front of a usually pretty empty A’s stadium though.

I believe the Rangers will enjoy clinching the division but are more focused on securing home field advantage. The race for that advantage has tightened as of late with a surging Boston Red Sox and the Cleveland Indians who have been their all year.

Next: Texas Rangers: Why I'm Glad They Lost To The Angels

Which are you more looking forward to, clinching the division or watching the race for home field play out? Join the conversation on our Facebook and Twitter page and if you think you’d like to write for Nolan Writin then inquire on those pages and we can see if there is a spot open for you!