Texas Rangers: What we must see early in spring training
By Reid Hanson
For the Texas Rangers, there’s no shortage of things to prove this year in spring training but one item stands above the rest on the list…
Spring training is going to be an exciting one for the Texas Rangers. With so many questions facing this rebuilding ball club, it’s hard to predict how things are going to turn out. The Rangers will be bad. I think we can all agree on that in some regard. But how bad and in which specific ways are yet to be answered.
The Texas Rangers are merely trying to survive this season. And to do that, they’re going to need some luck with their starting pitching. After dumping the entire rotation save for one guy (Mike Minor), the Rangers decided to address the issue by throwing a whole lotta stuff at a wall and waiting to see what sticks.
And that’s where we are today. The thing we need to see first this spring training is the starting pitching. Lance Lynn is expected to be healthy and ready to go. As are Drew Smyly, Shelby Miller, and Edinson Volquez.
That’s the good news. The bad news is all are recently coming back from injury and just because they’re expected to come back and the timetable says they can make it back, doesn’t mean they’ll actually be back.
Setbacks aren’t rare for players coming back from Tommy John and with so many players coming back from it on the Texas Rangers, it’s safe to say we’ll see someone have a hiccup between now and Opening Day.
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There aren’t many extra options at this point for the rotation (something we’ll dive into more this weekend) so it’s imperative these expected starters get off to healthy starts. Because “healthy” is the operative word. It would be great if some of these guys reclaimed their former glory, but at this point, all we’re asking for is healthy.
This early in spring training, pitching results don’t matter anyway. Pitchers are trying to work on things and get into a rhythm. It’s a time when great pitchers look bad and bad pitchers look great. What we need is steady progress and continued health from the starting rotation.
Earlier in the month The Texas Rangers added a couple other comeback pitchers when they added Chris Nunn, Ricardo Rodriguez, and David Carpenter. How much they can contribute and when remains to be seen.
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The Texas Rangers have a lot of questions that need answering in spring training this year, but the first item of business is making sure their starting pitching remains healthy and on track. If not, there aren’t many attractive options internally and Jon Daniels will be tasked with more outside bargain hunting