Texas Rangers Need to Jump on Josh Hamilton's Back and Win the World Series

The Texas Rangers are this century's answer to the Cleveland Indians of the mid-to-late 1990s. This is both a good and a bad thing.

It's a good thing because those Indians were one of the most explosive offensive teams in Major League Baseball history, and they were able to generate a lot of wins on the strength of their bats. The Rangers are constructed in a similar way, though their pitching is definitely not be underestimated.

It's a bad thing because those Indians failed to win the World Series despite going to it twice and getting close on three other occasions. The Rangers, of course, have lost the World Series two years in a row.

The 2012 MLB season is still very young, but it's already apparent that the Rangers are the team to beat in the American League. They dominated out of the gate, and no team in the AL can match the balance of good arms and good bats that they have. They entered Wednesday fifth in baseball in team ERA, and first in runs scored.

Josh Hamilton is directly responsible for most of those runs. Everyone in Texas' lineup can hit, but Hamilton makes them all look like little leaguers by comparison. He entered Wednesday leading the AL in average (.406), home runs (14) and RBI (36). On Tuesday, he slammed four home runs and drove in eight runs.

We've seen Hamilton play like this before. That was back in 2010, a year he finished with a .359 average, 32 home runs and 100 RBI despite missing the final month of the regular season. He returned to lead the Rangers to the first World Series in franchise history, and the organization will need him to take them back there again.

Hamilton is up to the task. It's pretty clear that only injuries are going to slow him down during the regular season, and he proved each of the last two years that he can be clutch in the postseason.

Just not so much in the World Series. Hamilton went 2-for-20 in the 2010 World Series against the San Francisco Giants, and 7-for-29 in the 2011 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. He had one huge hit in that seven-game series (the 10th-inning homer in Game 6), but was largely invisible throughout the rest of it. 

The Rangers' defeats in the last two World Series cannot, and must not, be pinned solely on Hamilton. Their pitching let them down, and the fact of the matter is that the Rangers would have won the 2011 World Series if Nelson Cruz wasn't such a lousy fielder. (Hamilton wouldn't have had a chance to hit that huge home run if Cruz wasn't such a lousy fielder.)

This year, Hamilton has it in him to be the difference between the Rangers getting to the World Series and the Rangers winning the World Series. They've been good enough to get to the brink of winning it. Just imagine what kind of difference a few extra hits from Hamilton could make.

The Rangers would be wise to buy into the notion that Hamilton could be a one-man wrecking crew in the World Series. They should treat Hamilton as their very own Mickey Mantle or Joe DiMaggio, a once-in-a-lifetime talent with a knack for winning baseball games.

The Rangers are known for being a close-knit team. They get contributions from all over and they win as a team. When the Rangers are winning, there are lots of smiles, cheers, claws and antlers. Everyone is in the moment, and no one player is bigger than the team.

What I'm saying, in a nutshell, is that the Rangers should try something else this season. They may not want to admit it, but Josh Hamilton is bigger than the Rangers. They should accept it.

Hamilton is their superstar, and they need to make him their idol. They need to believe that he can deliver a World Series victory, and that all they need to do is help.

If they can bring themselves to rally around Hamilton, the Rangers will do what the Cleveland Indians couldn't.

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