By this point in time, it's pretty clear that Tanner Scheppers is best suited to be in the bullpen for the Texas Rangers, not in the starting rotation.
For hiis teammate and fellow convert Robbie Ross, the jury is still out.
If you look strictly at runs and ERA, Ross is off to a great start in his career as a big-league starting pitcher. He has two no-decisions and has a nice, crisp ERA of 1.74 through his first two big-league starts. But there's plenty more than just those very superficial stats to look at.
Through his two starts, he's thrown just 10 1/3 innings — just more than five innings per start. That's not great, but can be lived with if you have a standout bullpen, which at this point, the Rangers lack. He's struck out more batters than anyone expected and has shown he has swing-and-miss stuff, and that's a positive, with 11 punchouts in his two starts. He's also walked eight batters, including six in his previous start which he somehow left in the sixth inning with just a 1-0 deficit.
Ross needs to work on getting deeper into ballgames if he wants to keep a spot in the rotation, and he can start working toward that goal on Tuesday night when he takes the hill against the Seattle Mariners and former Rangers prospect Blake Beavan, who will be making his first start of the season after starting the year in the minors.
He's passed Scheppers on the staying power chat in regards to whether he'll remain in the rotation when guys start getting healthy, but he still needs to show some more to officially earn a long-term spot.
