Washington, Rangers Not Worried About Struggling Offense

It doesn’t take a Peter Gammons to figure out that the Texas Rangers’ usually potent offense has been struggling of late.

In the last week, Texas is playing .500 ball, at 4-4, and hitting .248 as a team. This is almost 40 points lower than the team average for the season; their on base percentage over the past week is .303 as opposed to .341 on the year. But the most dramatic decline can be seen in slugging percentage.

For the year, the Rangers’ are slugging at a .463 clip--in the last seven days, the team slugging percentage is an uncharacteristically low .381.

But the Rangers aren’t ready to panic over the offense, and manager Ron Washington attributes the slumping offense to little more than a rough patch of the sort that’s inevitable over a 162-game season.

"We’re in May," Washington said, per ESPN Dallas. "We've just got to keep grinding like we always do. I have quality guys out there in that clubhouse and we’ll put it back together."

Michael Young, who is hitting an unheard of (for him) .233 for the month, believes the team’s offense is capable of breaking out at any given moment, an idea that’s supported by the fact that the team still leads the league in batting average, runs and slugging percentage.

"If we go through a tough stretch and we’re playing .500 ball, sometimes that happens," Young said. "But we know we're capable of going on hot stretches where we get a ton of wins in a row. We just stay focused on the things we know we're capable of."