Texas Rangers series preview: Cellar dwellers collide
The worst in the west comes to the K
Just five games better than the Royals, the Texas Rangers have been a complete disaster this season. Coming into action with a 29-44 record, they are already 19 games out of first in the American League West, and own the fourth-worst record in the AL. Put succinctly, prepare yourselves for some bad baseball this week.
Game times and pitching matchups are as follows:
- Monday, June 18 — 7:15 PM CDT — Bartolo Colon versus Ian Kennedy
- Tuesday, June 19 — 7:15 PM CDT — Cole Hamels (L) versus Jason Hammel
- Wednesday, June 20 — 7:15 PM CDT — Yohander Méndez (L) versus Jakob Junis
All stats courtesy of FanGraphs and Baseball Reference
At least Bartolo Colon is fun to watch pitch. Cole Hamels is either replacement level or very good, depending on where you come down on the fWAR/rWAR debate. To be fair to Hamels, he has outperformed his FIP almost every year of his career, though this level of outperformance should be expected to regress to the mean.
Yohander Méndez is the new face the Royals will see this week. Promoted just last week, the southpaw top pitching prospect in the Rangers’ organization got shellacked by the Rockies last week, giving up six earned in just three innings of labored work. He spent most of last year in the Texas League and pitched well, but his stint this year in the Pacific Coast League went decidedly less swimmingly, with his walk-rates increasing and his K-rates decreasing with the return to AAA, where he pitched some in 2016 (but not 2017). Méndez has been a bit frustrating as a prospect, with his plus-velo from the left side and solid changeup being the things keeping him afloat while he struggled with his command and trying to spin a breaking ball consistently (neither his curve nor slider are particularly good).
As a group, the Rangers are slashing .231/.315/.391 with a .308 wOBA and 90 wRC+. In other words, their offense is a little better than the Royals, but that’s hardly good.