Ron Washington has always claimed to be a manager that stresses the fundamentals of the game, especially defense.
As a former journeyman infielder, he takes a special interest in team defense and made that his selling point when he was hired by the Texas Rangers.
This year, though, his players aren't making him look too good.
The Rangers lead all of baseball with 72 errors in just 85 games, compared to their 105 errors in all 162 games last year.
Ian Kinsler has seven errors, not an absolutely terrible number for a rangy second baseman that gets too many balls that many players don't even attempt, but it's still not good.
Elvis Andrus is second in all of baseball with 16 errors, which equals his number from all of last season. He had a key error in the eighth on Sunday night that led to all four Marlins runs in the inning being unearned. Even though it was a tough play and probably should've gone officially in the books as a hit, it's a play a young star the caliber of Andrus should make.
Washington sure thought so, anyway.
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"This is the big leagues," Washington told a gaggle of reporters after the game. "That’s a chance for a major league shortstop to make [a play], and he didn’t make the play. There’s no excuses; he didn’t make the play."
Before that error, Mark Lowe had a chance to end the inning when he perfectly executed the age-old trick of fake to third, throw to first with runners on the corners and caught the Florida baserunner red-handed. It was perfectly executed, anyway, until he double clutched and threw the ball in the dirt, failing to record the third out. That didn't even count as an error, as the Rangers had three on the night.
That's the way baseball go, I suppose, but you can't be too happy with how it going right now.
