Yu Darvish

The Rangers and Detroit are about to face off in a four game set this weekend, but that is now what everyone is talking about. Everyone is talking about tonight’s match up of Rangers ace Yu Darvish verses Tigers ace Justin Verlander. It is a highly intriguing match up, that is unless you are an offensive player in this game. Baseball reference tells us that Yu is 6-1 with a 2.73 ERA. He has pitched 52.2 innings, struck out an astonishing 80 batters while walking only 18. He has a whip of 0.911, a SO/9 of 13.7, a WAR of 1.5 and a RAR of 16. Darvish is in the top five in the AL in wins, win/loss percentage, walks & hits per 9 innings, hits per 9 innings, and strikeouts.

Justin Verlander is 4-3 with a 1.93 ERA. He has pitched 51.1 innings, struck out 57 while walking 18. His whip is 1.208, his so/9 is 10.0, he has a WAR of 2.1 and a RAR of 20. Verlander is in the top five in WAR for pitchers and ERA. So what do all of those numbers tell us? That hits are going to come at a premium in tonight’s game. Both the Rangers and the Tigers are going to have trouble putting the ball in play or even making contact. It should be another one of those stressful, down to the wire type games. I think this is one of the most anticipated games of the young 2013 season so far. In a different way, it is kind of like the game last season when C.J. Wilson came back for the first time and faced off against Darvish. And we all remember how that turned out. Darvish waited out the rain delay and Wilson did not.

Well hopefully there will be no rain delay to worry about tonight, or for the rest of the series for that matter. Tomorrow pits Nick Tepesch (3-3, 4.03 ERA) against Rick Porcello (1-2, 6.68 ERA). Nick has had some ups and downs of late but I trust him to come through at home and get the Rangers a win. Porcello has had a bad season so far, and we can all only hope that continues Friday Night. Saturday has Justin Grimm (2-3, 4.28 ERA) facing off against Anibal Sanchez (4-3, 2.05 ERA). Now that Alexi is injured (that was kind of shocking news today after the way he pitched last night), The Rangers really need the young guys to come through and keep them in games. I hope that both Justin and Nick are able to do just that. Saturday will be tough because Anibal is having a very good season so far.

The Finale of the series has Derek Holland (3-2, 2.93 ERA) coming off of a great start going up against Doug Fister (5-1, 3.06 ERA). If Derek can pitch at all like he did in his last start and limit the home runs, he has a great chance of getting his fourth win of the season, but this is another game that I believe will probably go down to the pen to win, and the Rangers have the better pen.

All in all, this series of two first place teams is shaping up to be a very fun series to watch, I just hope it turns out that way.

The Oakland Athletics have not been playing good of late. They have lost seven of their last ten games, and some of them have been downright ugly.The Rangers, on the other hand are seven and three in their last ten games. Now I may not be the brightest tool in the light socket (see what I did there?), but to me this spells trouble. The Rangers are never that sharp coming off of a sweep like they just did, and they always seem to have trouble with Oakland. West coast games are hard to watch and hard for the Rangers to play in the first place, and now you have the extra bonus of the fact that the Rangers are flying high and the A’s are down low. This usually means disappointment for the Texas Rangers and their fans.

I know that this might be a skeptical view of things, but every time I think that this team is about to have a break through and go on a nice winning streak, something like what happened in Chicago seems to happen to them. I would be less nervous if they could string together five or six wins in a row, but they don’t seem to be able to do that. Right now would be a great time to put down the A’s, but I don’t believe that the Rangers are going to be able to. I see the Rangers losing tonight, winning tomorrow and losing Wednesday. It is not that I don’t trust Grimm or Ogando, I just don’t trust this offense to continue scoring as much as they did during the Houston series.

I hope that I am wrong on this one, I really do, but I just feel like the Rangers are going to once again bring us down after raising us up over the weekend. Lets see if those bats can prove this skeptic wrong.

Alexi Ogando in his last outing pitching in first inning against the Atlanta Braves. (AP Photo – John Amis)

The Rangers road trip has been mostly unsuccessful so far, after losing to the Cubs and splitting with the Brewers, but the good news is the next team on the road trip is the Houston Astros. The Astros just finished a series with the Angels, an epic battle to see who could achieve last place in the AL West. The Astros were just able to hang on to last place after taking two our of three from the Angels. We have seen in very recent history that the Rangers sometime tend to have a bit of a letdown when they are playing against a much inferior opponent, like say, the Cubs or the Astros. They need to play to their potential and put more distance between themselves and the rest of the AL West.

The Astros have finally won ten games, thanks to the Angels (I just like to remind you all that the Astros took two out of three from the Angels), and that is very good when you have played over thirty. They send Dallas Keuchel to the mound tonight for his first start of the season. Keuchel, as a reliever for the Astros, is 0-1 with a 4.96 ERA, a WAR of -0.5 and a RAR of -3. Those numbers look good for the Rangers. The Rangers have played well in Houton over the past few seasons, and some of those year the Astros had pretty good teams. The Rangers should be able to knock Keuchel around a little bit tonight. Alexi Ogando will be going for the Rangers, and I hope that good Alexi shows up and dominates this less than potent offense. This is a side track, but I think when Colby Lewis gets back (and he is about to go through his rehab assignment) that Alexi is going to be moved back to a bullpen role to replace Derek Lowe or Jason Frasor. I may be way off base on this one, just what I think that the Rangers are going to do. I would be good with that too, for the record.

Saturday pits Eric Bedard (0-2, 7.36 ERA) against the master of all pitching in the American League and the guy who almost threw a no-hitter last time he pitched against the Astros, Yu Darvish (5-1, 2.56 ERA). This game should be a no brainer. The Rangers should run away with it. I say should because the Rangers have never hit Bedard that well. I hope that changes Saturday night.

Sunday has Jordan Lyles (1-0, 4.50 ERA) going up against the struggling Nick Tepesch (2-3, 4.50 ERA, but he is 0-2 with a 8.44 ERA in his last two starts). Tepesch needs to use this opportunity of playing against the Astros to get back on track. He struggled with his command in his last outing against the Cubs, looking awful. If there ever was a time to straighten that out, it would be against the Astros.

As mentioned, I think the Rangers should sweep this series, they are a much better team all around and they are at the top of the AL as far as record and pitching are concerned. I will be sorely disappointed if the Rangers do not win the series, and a little disappointed if they do not sweep the series. Lets all sit back and enjoy some Rangers baseball this weekend.