Texas Rangers Have A Rough Monday

Sounds like someone has a case of the Mundays, but in this case the Rangers organization had a legit gripe.

First the news came Monday morning that Josh Hamilton would have surgery this Tuesday morning to repair his abdominal tear.  Early projections have him missing the next 4-6 weeks as he recovers from the surgery.  I have already heard some rumblings that the surgery went well.

The bad news of this is that the team does in fact lose last season's AL RBI champ.  However, let's take the positive spin here.  The team has been playing well and winning games this season without much production from Josh.  He has only been able to play in 35 games and is batting .240 with only six home runs.  On the flip side Josh has produced 24 RBI and scored 20 times in those games.

The best way to look at this is for Josh to take his time, use all six weeks to fully recover from the injury, and then return to the line-up.  Look at Josh's return similar to that as an acquisition made right around the trade deadline; however, this time we get back a big league slugger and give up nothing in return.

Get well soon, Josh.

The second bit of news on Monday was the good news for the day. The news was passed down that the Rangers front office will exercise Ron Washington's 2010 club option.  Meaning that he will definitely be the coach for the rest of the season and I have very little doubt that he won't be here all of next season, if not longer.

This season Ron has led the team to 34 straight games in first place in the AL West.  The last time the team was in first place that long was 1999. Coincidentally that was the last time the team won the AL West.

The third bit of information was more bad news and it was that starting pitcher Brandon McCarthy has a stress fracture in his right shoulder blade.  The injury is similar to the injuries that he has suffered over the past couple years.  The team is only announcing that he will be out for several weeks.

The organization is hoping that with time spent resting and on the DL that Brandon will be able to recover from the injury and return to the rotation in late July or possible early August.

Then came last night's game.  Scott Feldman took the mound and had one of his rougher outings of the season.  I'm not saying that he pitched poorly, he simply pitched poorly by Scott's standards this season.  Scott's only real problem was that he twice walked Vernon Wells and Adam Lind followed with a home run.

The Ranger offense struggled to find a rhythm against Blue Jay starter Casey Janssen until late and then were unable to fully comeback from down four runs.

The bullpen provided little relief in this one as the Rangers eventually lost 6-3.

Bringing us to the final bit of information for Monday.  Though it took place on Tuesday morning, the beginning of this must have started as late as Monday.  The Texas Rangers have acquired relief pitcher Jason Grilli.

Grilli is a 28-year-old righthander that has been with the Colorado Rockies this season.  Colorado had recently designated him for assignment in the minors, then before the Rockies could place him on waivers the Rangers made a deal to trade for Grilli in exchange for cash considerations.

Grilli's stop in Texas would be his fifth Major League team in his career. He made his debut in the Majors with the Florida Marlins (2000-01), and has since spent time with the Chicago White Sox (2004), Detroit Tigers (2005-08), and Colorado Rockies (2008-09).

Grilli was on the Rockies 40-man roster and out of options, meaning that the Rangers will have to put him on their 40-man roster and keep him in the Majors.  If we attempt to drop him down to the Minors then he would have to first pass through waivers.

It is very likely that the Rangers will release righthander Kris Benson to make room for Grilli, although no official word on that yet.

It was a busy day and a half for the Rangers organization that brought more bad news than anything, but that is the great thing about baseball.  Yesterday is history, today is already here, and tomorrow we play a new game.