2 Step Then Cowboy Boogie: Mariners (56-78) at Rangers (65-69)

Fresh a regular butt-kicking at the hands of the Yankees, the Mariners take their horse (read: jet) on the old town road (read: air route) to ride (read: hit) til they can’t no more (read: til the game is over). Yes, that’s right, the Mariners are in Texas and I’ve listened to too much country rap lately. As if there’s such a thing.

The Rangers’ pitching is pretty darn good. A lot of that can be explained by them having two 4+ fWAR pitchers, including Best Pitcher In Baseball (what, and I cannot stress this enough, the hell) Lance Lynn. That’s gone a long way towards propping up their record, as their bats overall are 2018 Ryon Healy quality. So are the gloves, really.

I get that, like, you want to know about this lineup top to bottom. I get that. I do. But how on earth am I supposed to lead with anything beyond the fact that the Rangers have given Jeff Mathis 229 PA and his wRC+ is... 8? It’s 8. I checked it three times. The Rangers might actually be pretty good at hitting if you left him out! Okay, well, they’d be better. Shin-Soo Choo and Danny Santana and Willie Calhoun are neat, and Nick Solak has potential. But Rougned Odor remains mal-odorous instead of bon-odorous, and Logan Forsythe is looking pretty old. Again, Jeff Mathis has a wRC+ of 8.

Probable Pitchers

Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images

Lance Lynn has always been good. Suddenly, Lance Lynn is great. The stuff is really good across the board and generates lots of whiffs. Lance Lynn is 6’5”, 280 pounds. His Players Weekend jersey was because his full name is Michael Lance Lynn. Honestly, I’m not really sure what to say about Lance Lynn. He is really, really good and I kind of hate it. At least the rest of the Rangers are bad.

Kolby Allard came to the Rangers in the Chris Martin trade, which, wow, the Rangers got Kolby Allard for two months of Chris Martin and I still can’t believe that happened. Allard, a former first rounder, has pitched 21 innings for Texas and they’ve been good. Just barely 22, Allard was an absolute steal for Texas and throws a three pitch mix: fastball, curve, change. All three pitches are good, and Allard’s early returns make him look like a thorn in the AL West’s side for many years to come.

Brock Burke is a lot like a couple of Mariners’ pitchers in one specific 2019 aspect: he’s deserved to be in AAA, but has barely spent any time there because of the juiced ball. Instead, he spent the lion’s share of his minor league time in AA, where he carved the league up, rather than AAA, where he had an ERA of 7.88. 12 innings into his big-league career and Burke looks promising: he has a four pitch mix and a recently improved velocity trend thanks to a weighted ball program. Also, he says Chick-Fil-A’s chicken sandwich is the best one. Make of that what you will.

As the Mariners’ pitching prospects trickle into the big leagues, Mike Minor is an excellent reminder of exactly how fickle elite pitching can be. A heralded prospect who had a couple nice seasons in Atlanta, Minor sort of went of a cliff in Atlanta, headed to Kansas City, headed to Texas, and squeezed a couple of, again, nice seasons in before a sudden 2019 breakout in his 10th (!) year in the big leagues. All four Texas starters in this series have compelling reasons to watch them. Maybe this will be us soon.

I would like to speak to the Manager about the Rangers’ continued inclusion in this table.

Thanks to the Yankees, the Mariners were able to slide into the 6th spot again, and even to make up a little ground on the Jays for the 5th spot.