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.
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.
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.
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