Ian Kinsler & Elvis Andrus Make Some Dubious History

If you watched the Texas Rangers this season, you know that the team had some uncharacteristic trouble in the running game--well, uncharacteristic for the Ron Washington-led Rangers, anyway.

Our own Adam Boedeker pointed out earlier this week that the woes on the basepaths played a fairly significant role in the Rangers’ struggles in 2012, but before today, we hadn’t realized that a pair of Rangers were actually historically unreliable after reaching base.

According to Gerry Fraley of the Dallas Morning News, the pair of Elvis Andrus and Ian Kinsler were picked off 11 times combined--Kinsler was nabbed six times (second most in baseball, behind Jose Reyes, who was caught off guard seven times), and Andrus was nabbed five times.

This is the most instances of being picked off for any two teammates since individual pickoff stats began being recorded in 1987. In 1999, Rickey Henderson and Roger Cedeno combined for 10 pickoffs.

Overall, Texas was picked off a total of 29 times in 2012, tied for the second most in baseball with the Milwaukee Brewers and behind the Miami Marlins, with 30.