MVN - Most Valuable Network

Texas Drops 9½ Games Back With Latest Blowout Loss In Minnesota

One of the many problems with clinging to the precipice of playoff contention in mid-July, besides the insistent “buy or sell?” questions that invariably arise as a result of languishing in “no-man’s land” (that dangerous fuzzy area that signifies being anywhere from five to eight games out of first place), is that there is absolutely no margin for error.

The Texas Rangers came out of the feel-good All-Star break with no margin for error, the unfortunate result of sitting 7½ games back of the division-leading Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim with 66 games to play.

Rather than taking their desperate situation to heart and coming out of the gates firing, the hometown heroes have instead posted perhaps their two worst back-to-back performances since April, dropping Saturday evening’s contest by an embarrassing 14-2 margin and guaranteeing a loss of this vital three-game road series in Minnesota.

Those grandiose visions of October baseball in Arlington this fall appear to be fading awfully fast.

And as pumped as I am about Derek Holland’s unbelievable eight innings of work for High-A Bakersfield on Saturday (in which the 21-year-old southpaw yielded just a single unearned run on two hits and no walks, while punching out nine) and Nelson Cruz’s remarkable three-homer effort for Triple-A Oklahoma that preceded Holland’s excellence by just a few hours, I can’t help but feel a little bit dead inside.

But the ride sure was fun while it lasted.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 20th, 2008 at 3:09 am and is filed under The Season. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.