The Rangers Biggest Win Might Just Come Against the Experts.

April 10,2008, many moons ago, the Dallas stars opened up their quest for the Stanley Cup against the defending champion Anaheim Ducks, and only one beat writer out of 10 picked them to win the series. Most of the experts expended far too much time trying to tell me why the Stars could not win the series rather than why they could.

So you can only imagine the public outcry when the Stars wound up winning that series. Dallas suddenly became hockey-town, USA, the same people who predicted that the Stars would fall in 4 perhaps 5 games now were asking me to grab as much black and gold as I could stuff in a Wal-Mart basket because the Stars were going all the way. Where was this optimism before April 10th?

Now as for the matter at hand the Texas Rangers. I take a quick look over at Texas Rangers.com and it's a madhouse right now. People will not allow themselves to take a break from saying why we can't win and are ignoring the fact that at the end of the day this team is 4.5 games out of the wild card, and playing at the worst .500 ball.

It's easy to sit here, and say oh the Rangers aren't good enough to be contenders they should give up right now and prepare for the off season. Their bullpen is not good enough anyway, their starting pitching is not of the caliber of the Angels so it's all for naught anyway. But if that's the case, then we should berate those that told us to keep preparing for the future the past five seasons.  Always with the mentality of preparing and never with the dream of actually one day watching these pieces come together. 

I look at is as these prospects we all keep building our hopes on slip from our grasp from time to time or never pan out, so why not just play ball with who we got and if we have something successful (like this year), why not just ride the coaster until it's time to go home.  Shame on those people who can't support a winning team and predict failure for a team that's fighting it's way into relevance.

At some point you have to lay your chips out on the table, without being a homer, make a public declaration that "no, I'm not going to believe what ESPN says, I don't have to pack it in just because my team doesn't play in New York, or have Cy Young pitchers running up and down my staff." Not because I want them to win for the sake of making the fan in me happy. But honestly because this team has done nothing to make me say there is no way they can make the playoffs. There is still plenty of baseball to be played friends.

Let's look at a few things though for the sake of discussion. The Rangers are not the last place team in the West, which should get a standing ovation at the least, but we won't dwell. They are not 10 games out of the race, but we are acting as if they are. The Rangers are right there at the top of this race at the moment, four games behind the team they play next week for a four game series the almighty Yankees.

Look at the Rangers upcoming schedule. in the month of August the Rangers play New York four times, Tampa Bay three times , and Boston three times. If the Rangers even want a chance to make the playoffs they will need to come out of that stretch at best 5-5. That will keep them in contention.

If you want, you can even go as far as just the Yankees series next week. If the Rangers can win 2 of 4, (remember they took 2 of 3 earlier this season in Yankee Stadium) would it be too much for you to believe?

Finally let's look at who we'd have to leap frog to get in. Remember, although Boston, New York, and Tampa Bay are in front of us, they are also all jockeying for that first place position. They will be sharing a lot of games against each other down the stretch and will be contributing to making the Rangers path to the postseason that much easier.

The key week for me will be the week of Sept. 9th - 14th as we play Seattle and Oakland, two teams that have packed it in.

The Rays play Boston and New York, on the road.

The Yankees will have to deal with the Angels who may be the best team in baseball on the road, before playing a tough divisional game vs. the Rays.

Boston plays the Rays and then Toronto at home.

So as you can see, it's not unrealistic to think that if the Rangers get out of August without getting too far behind, there will be a chance to make up some serious ground on the teams ahead of them that particular week.

Now is the time to just sit back and be in the moment. The Rangers are on national TV for the first time in a few years next Wednesday, and they are finally relevant heading into August 1st for the first time since 2004. Let's back the home team, and let the chips fall where they may.