Ogando Proving Invaluable

Before Monday night's 11-5 win over the Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers relief pitcher Alexi Ogando hadn't allowed a baserunner in his two outings this season, looking like one of the most dominant pitchers in all of baseball in the process.

That streak came to an end on Monday, but his outing was almost equally as dominant.

The set-up man-turned starter-turned back to bullpen pitcher was called upon by Ron Washington after Yu Darvish was removed from his debut after 5 2/3 innings on Monday night. Ogando quickly retired the third out of the sixth inning on strikes, but he wasn't finished yet.

Ogando came back out for the seventh with a three-run lead, allowed a hit but retired the three other batters he faced to get four outs for the Rangers and give way to set-up man Mike Adams.

Monday night was just a shining example of how versatile, and valuable Ogando can be for the Rangers. There's no question that his talent is greater than that of a seventh-inning relief pitcher and that he'll likely either start of close in the not-so-distant future. But that's just how deep the Rangers' bullpen is (assuming Joe Nathan has a good season). Ogando can get you two outs, or he could get you six.

In other words, the Rangers have a problem that any other team in baseball would love to have, especially after watching some of the bullpen collapses that occured over Opening Weekend.

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