The fact the Texas Rangers are 15-13 after an April schedule that looked relatively stout with series against Boston, Tampa Bay and two against Oakland, not to mention one of the best offenses in baseball in the White Sox, is promising for a battered team.
With more players back and others nearing return, what can we expect for May? Currently, the Rangers sit three games back in the AL West, and once again, like in April, they need to be somewhere around .500 to keep the A's from pulling too far away before several missing pieces come back in June and July.
Looking at the May schedule, the Rangers play four teams with winning records entering the month (Los Angeles Angels, Colorado Rockies, Detroit Tigers and Washington Nationals) while facing five (Boston, Houston, Toronto, Seattle and Minnesota) with losing records.
The key stretch is going to be between May 9-21, when the Rangers don't play a team with a winning record before heading to Detroit for four games. Maybe Prince Fielder will find himself there?
In their 28 May games, let's project the Rangers to go 16-12. They'll lose their four-game series in Minnesota — a traditional house of horrors for the Rangers and split with the Tigers in another four-game road set in yet another Rangers' house of horrors.
In that stretch of May 9-21, the Rangers will go 8-3.
If that holds true, they'll enter June with the series finale in Washington D.C. with a 31-25 record and be in great shape to get guys like Jurickson Profar and Geovany Soto back, and possibly even Derek Holland.
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