Any remaining nervous thoughts revolving around center field for the Texas Rangers should've been put to bed on Tuesday night.
After a demotion to Triple-A and subsequent ankle injury to Julio Borbon meant the Rangers might be leaning heavily on Josh Hamilton to play center despite their wishes to keep him in the corners, Endy Chavez has come to the rescue.
Chavez isn't playing quite every day, but he's making a case too.
Hitting in the No. 9 hole, Chavez is hitting .347 with four home runs and 15 RBIs with 23 runs scored.
He's also playing some really solid defense in center. That was evident on Tuesday night when he nearly chased down a line drive in the left-center field gap, caught the rebound off the wall, turned and threw a perfect strike to a waiting cut-off man in Elvis Andrus before Andrus turned and fired to Adrian Beltre at third to cut down Erick Aybar, who was trying to stretch a leadoff double to a triple.
At that point, the Rangers still were clinging to a 3-0 lead.
Soon after, Chavez put the game out of reach when he stepped to the plate with Mike Napoli on second base and sent a moon shot 401 feet over the wall in right-center to push the Rangers' lead to 5-0 in the 8th inning.
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Chavez, who's 33 years old and has been up and down from the minors throughout his career and derailed by injuries, seems to have finally found a home in Texas.
Even if he's not the everyday center fielder come September and October (can you say Leonys Martin?), Chavez is, and will continue to have a big part in the Rangers getting back to the postseason.
