ShareThisOne of the great things the purists love about baseball is that it has no clock.
When a manager changes pitchers six times in three innings, the rest of us wish it did.
But baseball does have a calendar and since the Texas Rangers can't simply take a knee and kill the clock, they appear to be content to see the calendar come down on the A's one week at a time.
Some better baseball in Arlington last weekend could have put Oakland out of its misery. The A's would have flown out 11 1/2 games behind and talking about how much to play their September call-ups.
But from an Oakland perspective, the A's needed a sweep in their favor. Texas coughed up one game over the weekend and just one-half game on the homestand, but another week has been erased from a calendar that now turns to September.
With a bulging nine-game lead, The Rangers are the best team in the division -- we know that -- but they haven't done anything toward proving they are the best in the American League, going 6-12 against the likely A.L. playoff teams. Other than a 21-6 June, the Rangers have been as mediocre as the rest of the West.
That doesn't mean they can't change that perception in October as other teams that coasted in bad divisions have done.
But they'll need to start playing like they did in June if they want to make sure they avoid the fate of their late 1990s predecessors, which all had to face the Yankees in the first round and lost.
Over the final 30 games, the Rangers need to work hard to finish as the No. 2 seed to have home field in the first round and draw the Wild Card winner. Taking three of four from the Twins last week was a step in the right direction, but the Twins have been the best team in the league since the All-Star break so this won't be easy.
This weekend in Minnesota the Rangers will have a chance to do something about it head-to-head. Meanwhile, the Rangers have proved the old saying that every game counts. By making them count in the first three months, Texas hasn't had any reason to get nervous just yet.
Elsewhere, here are my impressions of the three new Rangers.
-- Cliff Lee: The left-handed ace will be fine. He also had a rough stretch in Philadelphia last year. All of the aces hit a bump in the road now and then. No reason to panic here.
-- Jorge Cantu: You'll run into a fan trying to be smart or a coach trying to take up for his guy who says "this guy does a lot of things that don't show up in the box score." But I saw a better quote recently that describes Cantu and that is "the most important things in baseball are in the box score. That's why they made it." Cantu had 10 home runs and 54 RBIs when the Rangers traded for him in July. After a month in Texas gear, his totals are still 10 homers and 54 RBIs. He's 2-for-17 in his last five starts. At least Chris Davis makes some defensive plays at first base.
-- Alex Cora: Nice pickup of a veteran infielder with pennant race experience. Can probably do what they hoped Cristian Guzman could and he was a lot cheaper.
(Andy Newberry writes for the Wichita Falls Times Record News in Texas.)
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