Ross Wolf has a big chance to do something positive on Thursday night when he takes the hill against the Baltimore Orioles to close out a four-game series in Baltimore.
A win on Thursday and the Texas Rangers will not only win another series against a contender but they'll climb back into a first-place deadlock with the Oakland A's, who enter Thursday with a half-game lead over the Rangers and are enjoying a day off.
Wolf, a career baseball vagabond has found a home with the Rangers as a valuable long-relief man and when he made his first big-league appearance since 2007 back on May 22 against the A's in a spot start, Wolf gave up just one earned run in five innings and pitched the Rangers to a 3-1 win over their division rivals.
Back on June 8 in the 18-inning marathon in Toronto, Wolf pitched 6 2/3 innings of relief giving up one unearned run. Other than that, he's been a pretty solid relief option out of the bullpen and will now get a chance for his second start with the Rangers on Thursday.
In his last eight appearances, he's given up three runs — all in one game against Seattle — in 19 2/3 innings of work. With the way the Rangers' rotation is in shambles, a solid outing could bump him ahead of Josh Lindblom as the next guy in line to make some starts until the Rangers' starters all get healthy again.
