Yovani Gallardo was steady and the bullpen was nails and Delino DeShields was disruptive and Shin-Soo Choo came up big, but perhaps lost in Texas 2, Chicago 1 in 11 was the job Hanser Alberto — who hasn’t been out of the lineup since he entered it a week ago and still hasn’t had a hitless game — did in the final moments of the game.
Leonys Martin had singled, for the third time on the night, to lead off the bottom of the 11th. Alberto was up, with DeShields, Choo, and Prince Fielder slated to follow. The objective was obvious, and with a lefthander on the mound, getting Martin (leading the league in caught-stealings) into scoring position by running him without putting something on probably wasn’t strongly considered.
The play was so obvious, that Alberto betrayed his intentions by squaring before White Sox reliever Dan Jennings kicked toward the plate.
Bunt foul, 0-1.
Chicago manager Robin Ventura thought he could possibly cut Martin down by pitching out on the second pitch, and even if if Martin weren’t running perhaps he could get the rookie Alberto to offer in the high-leveraged situation, in which case there’d be a two-strike count and the Rangers might have taken the bunt off, or risked a strikeout by trying it again on a chase pitch and not dropping the ball fair.
It wasn’t a great pitchout, but it was a pitchout, and Alberto could have let it go but he didn’t, extending the bat out of the zone and getting the ball down. It hugged the first base foul line, and Adam LaRoche couldn’t risk letting it roll (the consequence could have been Martin in scoring position with zero outs rather than one). Alberto was out, Martin reached second, DeShields was intentionally walked to set up a potential game-extending double play, and up stepped Choo.
Three pitches later, game over, and Alberto and his teammates poured out of the dugout to celebrate another walkoff before heading to the clubhouse to salute a fifth straight series win and a 5-2 homestand before getting on a plane for Kansas City.
The Rangers are exactly one-third through their schedule. And in spite of the decimated rotation, struggles at closer and second base and shortstop, and an offense whose core (with one exception) did nothing in April, Texas is tied this morning for a Wild Card spot.
I was thinking last night as Alberto (who did commit his first error in the game) contributed to a win, which he’s now done several times in his first week as a big leaguer: What if he’s what Leury Garcia was supposed to be, a plus defender who can fill in all over the infield and do some things at the plate to help his team win, at a league minimum salary?
What if DeShields is what Ramon Nivar was supposed to be?
What if Chi Chi Gonzalez, Jake Thompson, and Nick Martinez give this club what “DVD” were supposed to, without all the advance hype?
What if Choo — even if he’s not the .370/.500/.554 beast he was through his first 120 trips to the plate as a Ranger last year — is the player he’s been since the start of May this year (.308/.380/.549)?
What if Nomar Mazara is Ruben Sierra and Nick Williams is what Ruben Mateo was going to be and Joey Gallo is exactly what we think he is?
Hey there, Luis Ortiz and Ryan Cordell and Brett Martin and you, too, Yohander Mendez.
What if Shawn Tolleson is John Wetteland and Tanner Scheppers is Mike Adams and Keone Kela and Luke Jackson and Jon Edwards help make the back third death on offense, Royals-style?
I don’t know what Leonys Martin is. The flashes are awesome. But they’re still flashes.
Nobody will ever be Pudge Rodriguez again, but what if Jorge Alfaro continues to evoke memories even after he gets to Arlington, and turns out to be far more than Cesar King was ever supposed to be?
And what if Elvis Andrus is Elvis Andrus and Rougned Odor eventually does the things Michael Young used to do and Ryan Rua is early-days Ben Zobrist and Spencer Patton is Jason Frasor and Tomas Telis is what Max Ramirez was supposed to be?
What if this version of Prince Fielder, DH, lives forever?
What if Alec Asher is Colby Lewis, and while it’s sad enough that I didn’t think to wonder this half a dozen paragraphs up, what if Jurickson Profar is a switch-hitting Julio Franco?
What if Monday’s draft pick, fourth overall, is making All-Star Teams in five years?
Most of this will never happen, but not a whole lot of it can be summarily ruled out, and what if some of those things materialize as Yu Darvish and Derek Holland and Martin Perez and Matt Harrison come back, revitalized and good as new?
And what if Jeff Banister is Jim Leyland, or Clint Hurdle?
It’s probably fair to say I’m jumping the gun a bit and sprinting haphazardly toward a tank of Kool-Aid, and maybe pointing out the Wild Card standings on June 5 is even a bit goofy.
But the way this team has turned things around, not so much in the standings as in the style of baseball and the different ways it can beat you, I’m not unwilling to get ahead of things, maybe way ahead of things, and part of that is seeing how the ballplayers on the back of this roster, scouted and developed by this organization into pieces that could contribute up and down a roster, are doing exactly that.
And it was a heck of a bunt.
Dallas attorney Jamey Newberg has been commenting on Rangers from the big club down through the entire farm system since 1998.
Scott Lucas was born in Arlington, Texas, to Richard and Becky Lucas. He lived mostly in Arlington before moving to Austin, where he graduated from The University of Texas. Scott works for Austin Valuation Consultants, Ltd., and has published several boring articles about real estate appraisal and environmental contamination. He makes a swell margarita and refuses to run longer than ten kilometres.
Eleanor grew up watching the AAA Mudhens in Toledo, Ohio. A loyal Ranger fan since 1979, she works "behind the scenes" at the Newberg Report.
