The Rangers are steering the Blaine Crim experiment into abject failure territory

It has been a full week since the Texas Rangers called up Blaine Crim from Triple-A Round Rock to replace the struggling Jake Burger, who was sent down to "reset" and hopefully find his bat and cut down on strikeouts. In that week, Crim has started just one game and has only nine at-bats with no hits.

The worst thing you can do to a guy who is hitting well a the minor league level is call him up to the show, and then sit him or give him staggered at-bats. That kind of truncated debut makes it incredibly difficult for a young player to find any rhythm and get comfortable.

The transition to the big leagues is already enough of culture shock for. You're not only facing better pitchers, but you're also trying to adjust to being yanked out of your comfortable everyday schedule and being asked to get your feet under you on the fly.

Fortunately for Crim, he was called up on May 2 when the Rangers were still in the midst of a seven game homestand so he could make the short trip from Round Rock to Arlington and didn't have to fly into, say, Boston, where the team just wrapped up a three game set. That would have been a complete culture shock to take your first swings at legendary Fenway Park.

The best thing the organization could do for Crim is put him at first base everyday and let him get into a new routine. Instead, the Rangers have opted to play Joc Pederson, and now Josh Smith, who, despite his tremendous versatility and athleticism, has never really played the position in his career.

So, the question becomes: Why did you call him up if you were going to go out of your way to stack him behind veteran players with less experience at the position?

When Crim was asked to come in and pinch hit with two outs as the go-ahead-run in top of the ninth in the 6-4 loss to the Red Sox on May 7, you couldn't help but feel bad for Crim as he got to come in cold off the bench to face Sox closer Aroldis Chapman who was bringing it at 104 miles per hour. It felt like the team was setting him up for poor results.

You called him up because he was mashing at Round Rock, so give him a fair opportunity to prove he can bring that bat to the major league club.