A Completely Serious Article With No Satire That Even Sounds Optimistic (Arguably)

After yesterday’s post on Yu Darvish and Win-Loss records, now I know better than to offer up any form of sarcasm or satire at any point moving forward.

But I do have a few observations:

(1) If I try to shove Saber-related content down the reader’s throat, fans don’t like that very much. There’s no mass appeal in displaying statistical data that doesn’t involve batting average, home runs and runs batted in. I get that.

(2) Unintelligent human beings are the first to get nasty and resort to name-calling. This is not a surprise, particularly, but it does bring the level of conversation down to its lowest plane. That’s that shit I don’t like. If you follow me on Twitter (which I’m not advising you to do if you aren’t already), you know I get into my fair share of beefs with fans. I’m not trying to throw stones from a glass house here. That said, there is — contrary to popular belief — a way to argue without it turning into some bullshit fest of “You’re an idiot if you think that!” or “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” This isn’t 2nd grade.

(3) The unironic part is, sarcasm is commonly called the lowest form of humor. That’s why it’s such a universal language. It’s humorous to me, with a day to reflect, that so many people jumped my Twitter feed yesterday to tell me how much of a know-nothing dumbass I am when really, in actuality, those same people were duped by the easiest funny business decipherable. And that’s kind of sad, now that I think about it.

Keith Law gives his thoughts on the Rangers manager

On Tuesday night Martin Perez and the Rangers lost their 2nd game in a row to the Pirates. It’s Texas’s 8th loss in their last 11 games, and guarantees that this will be the 4th consecutive series they’ve lost, and 5th out of their last 6 (wedged around a 3-game sweep in Seattle two weeks ago). In other words: Bad job, bad effort, Rangers.

I suppose if you choose to take the glass half-full approach, then things should be looking up relatively soon. With only 18 games left in the regular season, they ought to, or this club is screwed. Since the A’s lost 4-3 in Minnesnowta on Tuesday, the division lead stands pat at only two games for the time being, and assures the Rangers will be no worse than three back in the loss column once Oakland arrives in Arlington on Friday.

Thus, we have reached that awkward part of the season where the outcome of the division basically hinges on what happens this weekend with Oakland and Texas.

Since we know the Rangers are better than they have played of late, there’s a decent chance they post a lopsided win this afternoon to salvage the series with Pittsburgh, before blitzing Oakland for at least 2 out of 3 during the weekend. Will that happen? Who the hell knows. This is glass half-full, remember?

I can’t pretend baseball is fun to watch during these inexplicable droughts from winning, but I’m also not so irrational to believe that the team we’ve witnessed of late is this bad. Drawing upon 2012’s collapse as any sort of reference point to rationalize what’s happening now is child’s play; this is a different team with different players and the opponents are different and the players on the opponents are different. There’s absolutely no predictive value looking into the past to assume what will happen the next game, or the next batter, or the next pitch. Baseballs are thrown, and baseballs get hit. That’s all that’s going on.

You might think I have my fanboy hat on in pure naïvety, as if I’m blinding myself from actual problems this team is experiencing. And that’s false. The Rangers have had problems since the first day of the regular season — and throughout the season — from injuries to suspensions to regression from certain key players. They have masked their issues at various points of the year by playing damn good baseball, which makes even the most logical among us a bit unrealistic in our expectations.

But let’s not fool ourselves. The 2013 Texas Rangers have never been complete.

Yet, through it all, here we are. There are 18 games left on the schedule — 3 against the team we’re chasing in the standings — and 2.0 games is all that partitions the two. The Rangers are not within striking distance; that description is better used on teams like Cleveland, or Baltimore, or Kansas City.

What the Rangers need to accomplish is right in front of their faces, right there for the taking.