Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Rangers Might Be Too Homer-Happy by Evan Grant

Story by Evan Grant

Good thing next week will be the last installment of Inside the Rangers for this calendar year.

I’m about out of topics.

And you guys seem to be about out of questions.

That said, we’ll make it through together for two more weeks. There is still enough interest in this season to keep Rangers fans watching and reading.

After all, there is a homerun record and a batting title to chase and a .500 finish to pursue.

We’ll save Michael Young’s batting title chances for next week when things may be a little more definitive, but in the meantime, we’ll briefly talk homers.

Now, I fully expect the Rangers to break – if not completely shatter – the all-time team home run record currently owned by Seattle. The Rangers began Tuesday with 252 in 150 games. The Mariners hit 264 in 1997.

I’m still not sure if breaking this record is a good thing.

Granted, it’s an amazing feat, especially given that you could consider this to be the first year of the post-steroids era.

But the Rangers’ reliance on home runs still makes them kind of one-dimensional. Setting the record, I’m afraid, will only reinforce the idea that the homer is the way to go.

Consider two things:
•The Rangers are 6-27 when they fail to homer this season. Had they found ways to win another five of those games, they’d at least be sitting on the fringes of the wild-card race as they head into the final 12 games of the season. Instead, they were officially eliminated from wild-card contention Monday when Cleveland won its 88th game. The Rangers can’t win more than 87.

•The Rangers are averaging 5.44 runs per game and are on pace for 881. Among the 12 teams to reach at least 240 homers in a season, that would rank only seventh. You’d think a team with such prodigious power would do a little better at generating runs. If the Rangers wind up with 881 runs, they’d have the 91st-best scoring offense since 1900. They’d barely crack the top 100? It would seem they’d need to be more efficient.

Maybe the best way to put this: It certainly would be nice to see the record set this year, so long as the Rangers don’t fall into the long-term trap of thinking the homer is the only way to score.

1 Random Thoughts:

Anonymous said...

tuff loss last night for the Rangers. if the bullpen gets any worse, i'll think i'm watching the d-backs. :-p