Monday: A May to Definitely Remember

Though the month didn’t end on a high note, the Rangers leave May in jubilee, as they finish with a record of 20-9. In fact, May was only the second time the Rangers have had a 20-win month in franchise history. The other was way back in 1978, when they went 21-10 in September. They go into June 10 games over 500 and with a nice 4 game lead over the enervated Angels, who were on the verge of falling behind the Mariners before their comeback win on Sunday.

May began with a loss, as the White Sox took down the Rangers by the score of 4-3. Then the Rangers went on a tear, winning 13 of their next 15 ballgames, bringing them into first place in the AL West. The only real dark spot on the month was when the Tigers swept the Rangers in Detroit. It seemed like a coincidence that the Rangers had suddenly lost ten in a row at Comerica Park, but after they went down to Houston and promptly swept the Astros, I began to reconsider my thoughts. The Rangers then lost two of three to the Yankees before taking three of four from the Athletics to close out the month.

The success during May was a team effort for the Rangers. No individual seemed to have their own glimmering moment in the sun. The hitters collaborated to give the pitching enough support, and the results were triumphant—most of the time. The Rangers’ hitters actually had a bit of a down month compared to April. Ian Kinsler lost it a little bit, Chris Davis got worse and worse, and Hank Blalock saw his average slide a little. On the other hand, Nelson Cruz really got going over the final weeks of May, and Michael Young stayed consistent. What I liked most about the hitters was that each one of them, regardless of their struggles, always seemed to pick up a hit in a vital situation: Hank Blalock with the game winning double, Chris Davis with the walk-off homerun, even Jarrod Saltalamacchia with the 2 RBI double in yesterday’s game despite the fact that Texas didn’t win. I can’t go further without mentioning how impressed I have been with the rookie Elvis Andrus. He’s been everything we could have hoped for and then some.

But it wasn’t the offense that carried the Rangers through May. It was the pitching. I was watching a game and one of the broadcasters reported that the Rangers had the fewest amount of bullpen innings for the month of May in all of baseball. That’s because the starters were going so deep into the games and they were going deep into games because they weren’t allowing very many runs. Here’s a nice stat: In 15 of the 20 wins, the Rangers’ allowed 3 runs or less, including three shutouts. To me the two key pitchers this month were Scott Feldman and Brandon McCarthy. Feldman, after filling in and then taking the place of Kris Benson (which is what I thought would happen), has gone 4-0 and lowered his ERA down to a comfortable 3.91. McCarthy has been equally outstanding, with the exception of a few rough starts. The most important achievement for McCarthy during May was that he was finally able to climb over his 6 inning barrier. On May 13th versus Seattle, McCarthy pitched seven innings for the first time as a Ranger. His next start he went seven innings again. Then he pitched a gem against the Astros in his next start, going nine innings and allowing 0 runs. On Saturday, he pitched six innings and only allowed one run. So in his last four starts, Brandon as pitched 29 innings and lowered his ERA down to 4.35 (it would be much lower if it wasn’t for one very bad start against Oakland earlier in the month).

To me it seems as if May has been a very long month, which is nice, because it’s made the Ranger glory all the better. It seems strange, but this has been the greatest month statistically for the Rangers since I started following them. It’s hard to fathom just how well they’ve played. And they still believe they can get better. June, as we all know, will be a challenging month. Right now though, I’m just savoring the moment, because the Rangers are in first place and it’s June 1st, meaning that 'early' is an adverb that can no longer be used.