Make Or Break: Struggling Rangers Host Red Hot Halos

The struggling Rangers will look to end an ugly skid against the hottest team in baseball in Arlington this week

By SCOTT M. CRISP

Updated 10:54 AM CDT, Sun, Jul 12, 2009

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It is the year of the Ox, for adherents to the Chinese Zodiac, and the year of the juxtaposition for fans of Texas Rangers baseball.

As the offense sputters about, recording seven hits in their last two games -- against San Diego -- a new, strange onus is placed squarely on the shoulders of the pitching staff. Texas fails and flails and strikes out with a staggering regularity as the staff does their best to stifle the offense of the opposition.

This is something they’ve done with moderate success of late; but the offense has been just bad enough to ensure the recent slide that has Texas a game and a half back of Los Angeles.

Consider: In the last 30 days, Texas has posted the second-lowest batting average in the league, the third fewest walks and the most strikeouts with a leviathan 214.

The pitching staff is literally in the middle of the pack in the American League in most categories, ranking seventh out of 14 teams with respect to ERA, walks and hits.

It’s not hard to deduce the key to Texas’s recent struggles: Really bad hitting plus decent pitching does not a winning ballclub make.

This is curious territory for a team that is an annual offensive powerhouse, and the home of arguably (probably) the best hitting coach in baseball, Rudy Jaramillo.

But the proof is in the pudding and, lately, the pudding has looked pretty terrible. The team is seeing very few pitches, swinging at too many balls out of the strikezone and relying on power at a time in which small-ball seems to be in order.

Jaramillo is obviously aware of all this, which compounds the overall weirdness of the situation. So what’s to be done? It seems that no one really knows. Firing Jaramillo might be the worst move Texas could ever make.

But the team needs to figure it out in a hurry, whatever the case.

When the Angels come to town on Monday night, it will represent a make-or-break series for Texas in the standings and, certainly, for fans in the seats.

As the Rangers sink, the bandwagon empties, leaving only the most loyal to hope and pray for brighter days, and try their best to remember how first place felt a week ago.

Over the next three games, Texas will attempt to get back on track, and recruit more North Texans for that increasingly light bandwagon; however, if things continue the way they have, playing the hottest team in baseball might serve to rock those last on-the-fencers out for good.