“You don’t know what you have until the first of June” — or some arrangement of most of those words in some order — is the yearly warning not to judge the team on the second week of April. Sometimes teams jump out to a quick start only to wilt as the weather heats up, or injuries take over. Other times, a team falters out of the gate only to find its stride in the summer sun.
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The Rangers have had their themes too, of late. In 2014, that theme was a horror show, as characters got picked off one by one until the Rangers’ DL looked like a tax document. In 2015, there was the onset of the #NeverEverQuit Banister-led Rangers, who twice came back from a sub-.500 record to overtake the Astros and win the division. In 2016, it was the “Cluster-luck” squad, whose run differential barely hovered in double digits for most of the year as they nabbed the best record in the AL. The 2017 season was the exception; the Rangers alternated between promise and dismay as they were trade-deadline sellers, but not out of the wild card race until the last 10 days or so of the season.
But 2018 holds no such vacillation. This year’s squad, a cadre of up-and-comers are, to borrow a phrase from Greg Tepper, #FunBad.
The second half of the hashtag is easily discernible: The Rangers are 21-32. There’s no polishing that. Every aspect of the game has been bad at some point, and injuries have cost the team its two best hitters for over half the season.
But as Texas braces for its first pass at triple-digit temperatures, the Rangers have done two things to help mitigate the record:
The first? They’ve taken action on a few of the guys who weren’t producing. Drew Robinson is in Triple-A. Carlos Tocci is on an extended rehab assignment in Double-A. Matt Moore is on the DL, taking a breather. Matt Bush took a spin in Triple-A. Kevin Jepsen is, ostensibly, packing up the RV. Ryan Rua is buried on the bench.
The second? Surprise, surprise. No, really. It’s what Jon Daniels said during spring training in Surprise, Arizona, and before: We’re going to let some of the young guys show us what they can do.
Friday night’s 8-4 win over the Royals showcased two of the most exciting new additions to the roster: Ronald Guzmán and Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Guzmán homered in the fourth inning, and it was his fourth in five games. The only exception was Thursday night’s game, in which he was a ninth-inning substitute and only got one plate appearance. Kiner-Falefa, meanwhile, made sterling defensive plays in back-to-back innings, diving into the crowd to catch a foul ball in the seventh, then sliding over the third base line to catch a grounder and retire Salvador Pérez in the eighth.
There’s one tiny detail from the latter play (which you can see in its entirety here) that is particularly entertaining: Look at just how out Pérez is on this play. Here’s where Kiner-Falefa’s body ended up after catching the baseball and popping up into a throwing position.
And here’s Ronald Guzmán catching the ball.
Guzmán is nicknamed “Condor” because of his reach, but the splits were wholly unnecessary here, as Pérez — not known for his blazing speed, but (one must assume) faster than a below-average-speed third grader — is not even remotely close to first base.
OK, ok. Guzmán did do the splits later, when he tripled in the eighth inning.
The Rangers are not likely to stage a miraculous comeback to contend in 2018. That is not the theme. Mike Minor continues to prove that he can be a starter in the big leagues, and Bartolo Colon has been a godsend, but a rotation that already lacks the arms to contend is likely to be ravaged further by the trade deadline.
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But they have youth. They have Kiner-Falefa, and Guzmán and Nomar Mazara (who homered again tonight), and yes: even Rougned Odor. They have Delino DeShields, Joey Gallo, Jurickson Profar, Keone Kela, and Jose Leclerc. They have Leody Taveras and Hans Crouse and Michael Matuella on the way in coming years. Closer yet are Willie Calhoun (AAA), Joe Palumbo (High-A, DL), Jose Trevino (AA), and Ariel Jurado, who continued re-introducing his name to the conversation by pitching a complete game shutout for the AA Frisco Roughriders on Friday night.
Youth is a wild horse, full of invincibility and oats, unaware of the imminent dulling of color and the sanding down of emotions that age must inevitably must wreak on its subjects. Youth believes in forever and better; it is the battery that pushes the wheelbarrow stacked high with the old and cynical into a new and better world because it believes that the result will be worth the effort, the relief worth the sweat. Youth is intrepid and invaluable. It cannot be bought, not in the surgeon’s office nor the banker’s vault.
Youth is #Fun
And yet, Youth, in all its exuberance, will overrun the mark, start too early, swing at too many pitches, run into too many outs. Youth will make five mistakes where none would suffice. Youth will commit 43 errors in the first 51 games when no one else has more than 38. Youth will take a spinning swing at the left field wall.
Youth is #Bad.
No …
Youth is #FunBad.
Until it’s not.
Sure, Youth is a plucky seed, messy and splitting in two as life emerges to crawl through the mud in search of the summer sun. And given time, yes: Cynicism is the browning of the edges of the drooping leaves, inching ever closer to a return to the loam, wondering why we’re playing this game at all.
And yet, if guided properly, Youth and Wisdom dance, and find the middle ground between losing to Captain Hook and forgetting about him. The plant blooms and flourishes, and the fruit gives life to the next generation (dare we add the phrase “adding rings to its trunk”? No, no, that’s a bit too on-the-nose).
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The Rangers are #FunBad right now. They will almost certainly lose more games than they win this season, and they will undoubtedly trade away some beloved names for even more youth, more wheelbarrow believers, more seeds.
Give it time. Let the sun and the dirt do their work. The theme will be different by 2020.
(Top photo: Kevin Jairaj/USA TODAY Sports)
