Over the past few seasons, there haven't been many players in baseball who have been more hot-and-cold than Texas Rangers outfielder Nelson Cruz. He'll have some horrid stretches and then go a couple of weeks carrying the team's offense on his back.
While he's not quite at that point right now, Cruz has gotten off to a hot start this season and it continued Tuesday night when his big three-run homer cut the Angels lead from 4-0 to 4-3 before the Rangers eventually tied the game and lost in extra innings.
Over the last seven days, Cruz has hit three home runs, driven in nine runs and has a .682 slugging percentage. Things were looking really good for Cruz heading into Wednesday's series finale in Anaheim as the Rangers were set to face Jerome Williams, who Cruz has absolutely owned over the course of his career.
Things still look solid for a red-hot Cruz though as he'll be instead facing Michael Roth, who was pitching for South Carolina in the SEC at this time last season and will be making his first big-league start. In four games this season, Roth has worked five innings with seven strikeouts and one walk and has allowed two earned runs.
With the Rangers bats starting to all come around, and Cruz's in full swing, Roth could be in for a rough night in his starting debut.
