Texas Rangers: Biggest Surprise in the First Five Games

Just five games into the new campaign, there have been plenty of surprises for the Texas Rangers. Which surprise is the biggest thus far?

The biggest surprise of the season for the Texas Rangers just five games in has to be the play of Asdrubal Cabrera. The 33-year old, offseason addition meant to fill the void of Adrian Beltre has been excellent and arguably the best player on the team.

I openly acknowledge this is a tiny sample size and he will come back down to Earth a bit. But still, he’s been an excellent offensive catalyst that has played a massive role in helping this club to an early 3-2 record and a chance to win back to back series to open the season.

Five games in, Cabrera is tied for the 2nd most at-bats (18) on the team with Rougned Odor and trails only Elvis Andrus in that category. Cabrera is swinging a hot bat right now with 6 hits in 18 ABs. He’s blasted 3 home runs, racked up 7 runs batted, has a .889 slugging percentage as well as a 1.239 OPS all of which lead the team.

Obviously, this kind of pace isn’t going to stay forever or we’d be talking about an all-time great year not to mention a runaway MVP. Still, this is extremely promising for a club that hopes to prove doubters wrong.

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This 3rd base spot and formerly Adrian Beltre’s spot in the lineup was a big spot of contention with concern that the club couldn’t afford to lose one of their most productive hitters from a year ago. But Cabrera seems to be capable of filling that void at least for the meantime. He’s been rock solid in the 2nd half of the Rangers order crucially jumpstarting the offense late in games.

While Joey Gallo’s marked improvement in plate discipline is worthy of praise as well as Elvis Andrus’ electric start swinging that bat, no doubt thanks to his new walkup song, Cabrera’s ability to come in on a lowkey, team-friendly contract, and put up the numbers he’s putting up qualifies as the biggest surprise so far.