Texas Ranger Elvis Andrus’ Growth and Josh Hamilton’s Historic Night

About a month ago I wrote a story about how I thought Michael Young of the Texas Rangers might be better suited for the 2nd spot in the batting order instead of Elvis Andrus, you can read that here.  Apparently Elvis reads SportDFW.com and my piece about why I thought he would be better suited lower in the lineup, and used that as fuel for the absolute tear he’s on right now.  OK, I guess Elvis might not have read what I wrote, but he is in fact playing the best baseball of his career over the last few weeks and if he continues to hit like this it will add another dangerous piece to the Rangers lineup.

One of the reasons I love watching the Rangers play the past few years is seeing Elvis Andrus do what he does in the field and on the base pads, and become an all-star caliber shortstop at such a young age. The one thing that people have always wondered about with Elvis is whether he would ever be able to become an impact hitter or if his batting average would sit in the .260-.270 range the rest of his career. Its hard to remember that Elvis is still such a young player, and he’s still developing as a hitter, but I have always believed that he could develop more power and plate discipline because of flashes that I’ve seen at the plate.

Over the past 8 games, Elvis Andrus is hitting .471 (16-34) and that has taken his batting average up all the way from .256 to where he is now 9th in the AL in batting. One thing that Elvis is continuing to improve on is waiting for the right pitch and going with it; 29 of his 37 hits this season went up the middle or to the opposite field.  Michael Young is one of the best professional hitters in baseball; one thing he excels at is taking the ball the other way when he has to, which is something the young Elvis appears to be learning.  Elvis was also on base for all 4 of Josh Hamilton’s home runs during tuesday nights 10-3 win over the Orioles. Now anyone can go on a hot streak, but in his 4th season we can only hope that Elvis is figuring out how to hit at the Major League level; if he can do that, his potential is endless.

Josh Hamilton

In case you’ve been away from all sports media within the last few days, Josh Hamilton had the best night by a hitter in American League history Tuesday night against the Baltimore Orioles.  Hamilton went 5-5 at the plate with a double, 4 homers, 8 RBI, 18 total bases and 4 runs, making him only the 16th player in MLB history with 4 homers in a game and breaking the American League record for total bases.

I had the privilege of watching Hami’s historic night Tuesday and I was amazed by the show that he put on, and the fact that even the opposing teams fans gave him a standing ovation after his 4th home run.  I was also amazed that Orioles manager Buck Showalter continued to pitch to Hami after he hit 2 home runs and nearly took a 5th inning double out of the park as well, one that would have put him in a league of his own with 5 homers if it would have went out.  Hamilton leads the league in home runs with 14 even after missing a few games with a back injury, and is making a lot of people bring up the possibility of winning the triple crown (leading the league in Home Runs, RBI’s, & batting average) for the first time since 1967.

I brought up Hamilton’s contract in my first story for this website and received a lot of reaction from fans about if they would choose to sign him to a long term deal, his price has to have gone up since the begining of the season even with the injury scare and its been reported  that it will cost the Rangers $20 million for 5 years to get the deal done.  At any rate Hamilton is a special talent and will be making plenty of money this off-season whether it be in Texas or somewhere else.

Upcoming Games

The Rangers face the Angels for the first time this season starting a 3 game series tonight in Arlington, the first game features Yu Darvish against former Rangers C.J. Wilson in what is sure to be a fun game.  The Rangers decided not to sign C.J. after last season and instead gave that money to a younger and unproven Darvish.  Darvish  has been impressive through 6 starts, going 4-1 with a 2.54 ERA.  After the Angels series the Rangers have some soft games in the schedule playing 2 games against the Kansas City Royals & Oakland A’s before hitting the road to play the Battle for the Silver Boot in Houston.

What do you think about Elvis’ play lately? Do you see it continuing? How much would you pay to keep Hamilton around? How do you see the Angels series going?

Become part of the SportDFW nation. Check us out on Facebook, Twitter or contact us at therealsportdfw@gmail.com