After losing just eight games in the month of June, the Texas Rangers have lost seven of their last nine. The question is, have the Rangers peaked or is their recent cold streak just part of the ebb and flow of a 162-game baseball season?
To understand the club's recent struggles, you have to look at what caused their success and what has contributed to them faltering of late. The Rangers dominant June was mostly a culmination of them killing the competition in their own division. They went 11-3 against the AL West in the month of June, which is stellar.
In their last 16 games, they are 7-9, none of those games were against division opponents. So does the club just not have what it takes against teams outside the division?
That probably isn't it. In the month of June they lost three of their top four starting pitchers due to injury. That hurts a lot more than any competition you face. The troublesome thing with that though, is Colby Lewis and Derek Holland are not due back to August at the earliest and Yu Darvish's health has been a huge question mark for the past two seasons. Is that something they can overcome?
Lucky for the Rangers, they have built a sizeable lead in their own division, they get an extra week to rehab with the All-Star Break, and early on, their post-Midsummer Classic opponents are not world-beaters. After a highly anticipated three game series at Wrigley to kick off the second half, the Rangers do not play another team leading their division or even in one of the two Wild-Card spots until August. That should give the Texas Rangers plenty of time to get the train rolling before the games get tight at the end of the summer.
If the Rangers have not exhausted all their good baseball, then they are in a great position to do damage late in the season. The focus now should be getting healthy, not the win-loss record.
