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The Texas Rangers are threatening to invert their 68-94 record from a year ago, and it appears this weekend was sweeps week(end) in baseball. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal — welcome to The Windup!
My description: highly gifted, take some notes
The challenge in writing about the Rangers’ 2023 season isn’t identifying what’s working, it’s fitting everything that’s working into one section. Here is an incomplete list:
• Marcus Semien is hitting .303 (.877 OPS) and has a 23-game hitting streak.
• Josh Jung has been named AL Rookie of the Month for both April and May. Not only is he hitting for power (.518 slugging, 12 home runs), he has made play after dazzling play at third base.
• Nathan Eovaldi since May 1: six games, 5-0, 0.82 ERA, four runs allowed.
• Jon Gray since May 1: six games, 5-0, 1.60 ERA, three runs allowed in his last five starts.
• Jonah Heim — already one of the league’s top defenders — is hitting .293/.345/.478 (.823 OPS) and his 2.2 fWAR is second among catchers (Sean Murphy, 2.9).
• Corey Seager and Mitch Garver — who both missed significant time with injuries — are now healthy, and both have 1.000+ OPS marks. Seager has more RBI (29) than games played (27).
• Adolis García is tied with Yordan Alvarez for the league lead with 51 RBI.
• Since 1900, only the 1936 Yankees scored double-digit runs as many times (16) in their first 58 games.
• Travis Jankowski is hitting .301 and robbed a home run (and another that would have hit the top of the wall) in yesterday’s 12-3 rout of the Mariners. By the way, the Mariners’ pitching is objectively very good and the Rangers dropped 28 runs on them in the last two games, outscoring them 30-9 in the three-game sweep.
• They lead the league in runs (376), RBI (362), run differential (+167), batting average (.278), on-base percentage (.345), fewest home runs allowed (52) and fewest hits allowed (451), and are in the top three in a bunch of others, but we’re running out of space.
They’re doing all this during a season in which Seager missed five weeks with a hamstring strain, Garver and Jankowski also missed significant time, and Jacob deGrom has been out since April 28 with right elbow inflammation.
GM Chris Young was consistent this offseason: He didn’t expect the team to go from 68-94 to the World Series in one year, but insisted that they would contend for a playoff spot, which felt optimistic to many.
They still need to shore up the bullpen at the trade deadline (though Grant Anderson has struck out eight of the 13 hitters he’s faced since debuting), but it’s looking like the team may outpace even Young’s optimism.
Ken’s Corner: Looking up to Aaron Judge
On Saturday, a few people who watched my post-game interview with Aaron Judge on Fox noticed the slight height difference between us. Actually, anyone who watched the interview and has at least one functioning eye probably noticed. A few then pointed out on Twitter that Judge was essentially the size of the Empire State Building and I was no taller than your average dachshund.
Anyway, it was all in good fun, before SI.com on Sunday delivered, um, the lowest of blows. An article headlined, “MLB Fans Crack Jokes as Yankees’ Aaron Judge Towers Over Reporter,” included this line: “Judge is listed at 6-7, while Rosenthal claims to be 5-4 1/2 tall on his Twitter bio.”
Claims to be? Like I would make that up? Brag about it?!?!
This was not the first time I’ve interviewed Judge on television, standing side by side. It was the first time I’ve interviewed him at Dodger Stadium, where the cameras are set quite low, just above the surface of the field. And let’s just say the angle didn’t quite portray us looking eye to eye.
For the record, being short is not a new condition for me. Certain family members who shall remain nameless have asked if I can stand on a box when interviewing tall players, but Fox has never asked me to do that, and I never would want to engage in such shameless duplicity.
Besides, for Judge I would need a ladder, not a box.
Here’s the good news for SI and any other hard-hitting entity that might want to jump on the breaking news that Aaron Judge is taller than me. The Yankees are on Fox the next two weeks, from Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park. If Judge homers over the Green Monster or, even better, runs through it, we’ll be back together again. Like Simon & Garfunkel. Or maybe Laurel and Hardy.
Me, I’m just counting down the days to our July 8 broadcast, Mariners at Astros, featuring my favorite player to interview: Jose Altuve. Who “claims to be” 5-6.
I sweep so I can sleep
The Rangers were but one of five (potentially six) teams who completed sweeps over the weekend. The others:
• Pittsburgh swept St. Louis, who fell to an NL-worst 25-35. David Bednar picked up saves in all three games for the Pirates.
• The Blue Jays swept the Mets. Both teams entered the series with identical 30-27 records, but the Mets’ bullpen faltered, and Vlad Guerrero Jr. seems to be close to turning a corner.
• The Marlins swept the A’s, which frankly seems a little predictable and mainstream at this point. C’mon Marlins. Also, kudos to A’s fans for crowdfunding a relevant fan giveaway on June 13.
• The White Sox swept the Tigers including a game in which all three runs were scored on a wild pitch — including the walk-off run, when a pitch hit the umpire in the face mask. One special moment: Liam Hendriks, who returned from non-Hodgkin lymphoma on Monday, picked up his first win of the year on National Cancer Survivors Day. On the Tigers side, Cody Stavenhagen has a heartwarming story on Zack Short and Jason Foley, teammates who are two of the three players from Sacred Heart to ever make the big leagues.
• And the Brewers could sweep the Reds tonight, as Jesse Winker returned to the place where he spent the first five years of his big-league career, and has thus far emerged victorious.
Do you miss the rogue who coaxed you into paradise?
Baseball is better with Joey Votto in it. The Reds first baseman already attempted one rehab assignment this year as he recovers from surgeries on his biceps and rotator cuff, but it was cut short. He started his second one over the weekend and talked to C. Trent Rosecrans about it before he headed off.
“I couldn’t catch balls. I couldn’t make contact when I wanted to. If you can’t catch the ball and you can’t catch with your bat, you can’t play,” Votto said (of his first rehab assignment). “You can play but eventually you won’t play. When I went down on my first rehab, I just felt nothing like myself. I felt weak. I felt sore all the time. I wasn’t strong at all. I lacked everything I needed to perform on a consistent basis. With the past roughly six weeks of rehab, live work, steady work, I feel like I’m in a place to begin the rehab (assignment).”
It might be Votto’s last year in Cincinnati — the team has a $20 million option for next year with a $7 million buyout — so here’s hoping that the chess-playing, handwritten-oral-history-note-
Thus far, the second rehab assignment hasn’t yielded much in the way of results — he’s 0-for-6 with a walk, but timing takes time.
Handshakes and High Fives
Speaking of baseball/basketball crossovers: did you know that Buck Showalter used to be a high school and junior college basketball ref? That’s interesting, but Buck’s quotes on how it has impacted his career as a manager are truly fascinating.
We deal in big-picture terms in this newsletter, so here’s a can’t-miss: Jayson Stark’s overview of what we’ve learned in the first 60-ish games of the season.
Aaron Judge continues to be Aaron Judge. In addition to the home runs, his defense has been sensational this year. Over the weekend, he Kool-Aid Man’d a wall in Los Angeles. Please watch the embedded video in that story and appreciate how the guy on the chair narrowly avoided death. Judge may have injured his toe on the catch.
The Astros drafted Forrest Whitley in the first round in 2016. Now 25, he still hasn’t made the big leagues, and his latest injury makes his future with the organization even murkier.
Andy McCullough’s mailbag starts with a banger: How are we feeling about the Shohei Ohtani trade market?
Zack Meisel has completed his Cleveland Baseball Countdown, and standing alone at No. 1 is Jim Thome.
Roger Craig, an accomplished major league pitcher and beloved former San Francisco Giants manager, has passed away at 93 years of age.
From late last week: a great profile on Vanderbilt baseball coach Tim Corbin’s wife Maggie, who helps run the program.
It’s once again time for me and Stephen Nesbitt to preview the upcoming MLB action on the On Deck podcast.
It’s hard to beat the Rays this year. Even harder when you do something like this:
(Photo of Marcus Semien: Sam Hodde / Getty Images)
