It hasn't been easy to find much to complain about with the Rangers this year.
When you win 15 of your first 19 games, doing anything but plastering a big smile to your face is trying more than a little too hard. Fretting about your team is part of being a fan, but some moments don't really call for it.
Now that the Rangers have lost four of six games, though, you can feel free to let some of your concerns loose into the world. The Rangers have now lost two straight series and, for the first time this season, they've lost two straight games. Figuring out the root of this trouble spot isn't difficult.
The Rangers bats have been just fine. They put up seven runs on Tuesday and they knocked Ricky Romero around for the first time ever on Wednesday night. The problem has been that the starting pitching has gone from breathtaking to gag-inducing in the last couple of spins through the rotation.
Matt Harrison was the culprit on Wednesday, turning in a poor start for the second straight time. Derek Holland, the other lefty in the rotation, has trended the same way in his last two starts and Neftali Feliz wasn't good at all in Tuesday's loss. All told, it's 30 earned runs allowed in their last 26.1 innings of work. That's not a particularly sustainable way to go about your business.
Not that we much expect things to continue along this path. Two bad starts in a row is worrisome, but it is something that you have to accept as part of the season for the best of pitchers.
And only the most cockeyed of optimists would think that it wouldn't be part of the season for pitchers that still reside on the callow end of the spectrum. Feliz, Harrison and Holland have been fixtures in our baseball lives for several years now, but that doesn't mean they are actually further aong in their career trajectories than other people their agres.
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This is all part of the process and the process is going to have some bumps in the road. It wouldn't be much fun if it was all smooth sailing, would it?
