Here’s the thing, though: even if we are to take these franchises at their most cynical and presume these efforts are purely profit-motivated, LGBTQ+ fans, like every other fanbase, enjoy knowing that their favorite team cares enough about them to do the bare minimum and acknowledge their existence in a sport with a whopping 81 home games per season and a tried-and-true history of attempting just about every manner of sales, promotion, and community outreach tactic imaginable to sell tickets. The particulars of Pride Nights vary depending by team (Outsports compiled a team-by-team breakdown), but they tend to involve a giveaway and a pregame ceremony of some sort—not terribly onerous, which goes a long way toward explaining why 29 of 30 MLB teams now have one.

We’re here because of the 30th, and a story by The Athletic’s Brittany Ghiroli titled “The Texas Rangers are MLB’s only team without a Pride Night. That’s unlikely to change.” And, in a way, that sums up the whole deal. The Rangers have made at least one gesture toward the community, serving as a co-sponsor of the NAGAAA Gay Softball World Series, which was held in Dallas in 2022. Beyond that, the team, which has been bad about LGBTQ+ issues in months besides June, doesn’t seem terribly inclined to follow the rest of the sport’s lead in this arena.

It does not matter that they put in the work to make similar outreaches to all sorts of groups; as Ghiroli notes, in the span of a week, the team is holding Vegan Night and Abilene Christian University Night (zero shade to our plant-based-dieting or Willie-the-Wildcat-loving readers).

Nor does it matter that the archrival Astros, who were among the last holdouts prior to Texas, got on board in 2021, saw the event grow in 2022, and, per Ghiroli, noted that it “has been a driver of both ticket sales and sponsor revenue, according to people within the organization.”

For whatever reason—Ghiroli’s reporting, in keeping with long-held speculation, points toward ownership—the Rangers are not compelled to join in, and so they won’t. Their statement on the matter, which was also furnished in response to a similar inquiry from the Los Angeles Times last week:

“Our commitment is to make everyone feel welcome and included in Rangers baseball. That means in our ballpark, at every game, and in all we do—for both our fans and our employees. We deliver on that promise across our many programs to have a positive impact across our entire community.”

Whether or not the Rangers consider the issue settled, this bears talking about not just because of the impact it has on fans, who tend to notice when their favorite team is the only one in the entire league that refuses to clear “the lowest freaking bar,” as a former employee says in the piece. Consider these very glaring excerpts on the impact within the organization itself:

“Some, including active Rangers employees who are members of the LGBTQ+ community, feared for their jobs and livelihoods in speaking out.”

And:

“Another former employee who worked on the fan experience side of things said she knew people there who were part of the LGBTQ+ community who didn’t feel comfortable speaking about their orientation at work.”

When your employees work in fear, the issue has graduated beyond mere outreach failure. It should be a capital-P Problem, a sign that whatever victory gained by staying the course is pyrrhic because of its impact on the workplace. Then again, considering this is the same organization that hustled its employees back to the office at the height of the pandemic faster than any other team in baseball (which, predictably enough, precipitated an office outbreak), it’s worth wondering how much a safe workplace environment matters to it in the first place. We know that the team has, for instance, done an admirable job extending grace to Eric Nadel as the legendary announcer remains on a leave of absence from the booth to address mental health issues. But it is hard to square the compassion shown for one employee’s struggles with the apparent indifference to scores more. It is a tacit admission that the organization has no qualms picking and choosing what matters, who matters, or both instead of conveying what should be obvious workplace rights—acceptance, respect, safety—to everyone who walks in the door.

It is a bummer that we need to go here. The Rangers, at long last, are an excellent baseball team once more, and a damn fun one, too. It is way more enjoyable to focus on the product on the field exclusively, and the Rangers would likely prefer all of us to do that. But not everyone who works there has that luxury. Not everyone who roots for them does, either.

Blocking off a few hours on a weeknight in June won’t fix those problems, but it would signify that the team acknowledges that they exist and feigns at least some interest in trying to do the work to improve the situation. And even that faintest gesture would be a step forward from the status quo.  

The post The Rangers’ Ongoing Refusal to Hold a Pride Night Is More Than An Outreach Failure appeared first on D Magazine.

Thursday, 6/22—The NBA Draft—7 p.m., ESPN

Dallas is slated to pick 10th, which is not only their best position since drafting Luka Doncic in 2018 but likely the best pick they’ll have for the foreseeable future. Provided, of course, that they don’t take Iztok Franko’s advice and trade their pick. He’ll have more leading into draft night; I’ll have something for you Friday morning.

Friday, 6/23—Wings at Sparks—9 p.m., ION

This is the first of a road two-step next weekend against the Sparks, who will be a little over a week removed from downing the Wings in Arlington. Will a Dallas squad struggling for momentum pick some up on the West Coast?

Sunday, 6/25—Rangers at Yankees—12:35 p.m., Bally Sports Southwest

The Rangers will have a tough test in the final game of this three-game set, with Yankees ace Gerrit Cole on the hill. How will the American League’s second-best offense hold up against one of the game’s best starters?

The post What I’m Watching: the Mavericks at the NBA Draft appeared first on D Magazine.

A lot has changed since then … well, not so much the last part. But with a third of the season in the rearview, it was time for Mike and Jamey to circle back for another chat about the rotation after deGrom, the surprisingly productive outfield, and the arrival of heralded pitching prospect Owen White.

Mike Piellucci: Jamey, these are bittersweet times in Texas. The Rangers are thriving: at 41-25, they have the third-best record in baseball, and no team has a better run differential than Texas’ plus-142. Marcus Semien and Corey Seager are living up to every cent of their contracts. Josh Jung is blossoming—and, as you noted on Friday, may deliver Texas a nice bonus next season. Nathan Eovaldi and Jon Gray are following the path laid down by Lance Lynn, Mike Minor, and Kyle Gibson before them, by leveling up as thirtysomethings from upper mid-rotation guys to second or third starters.

And none of that resonates the way it would virtually any other year because Jacob deGrom is done for the season, and probably much longer. StrongSide readers got my thoughts last Wednesday. They got Sean Bass’ earlier this week. But we haven’t heard yours yet. 

So, my friend, where are you in the aftermath of deGrom going down?

Jamey Newberg: I guess bittersweet is the right word for it, but it hasn’t crushed my energy for a few reasons. First, obviously, this sort of thing was always a risk with the deGrom signing, plus the Rangers have done just fine without him. But also, and this is probably a function of half a century of learned helplessness as a Rangers fan, it’s never going to be easy. Nothing close to what has happened in terms of wins and losses was supposed to happen, certainly not in 2023. Any franchise would inevitably have some sort of significant setback to deal with, and that certainly goes for one that has scuffled for a few years and, even when it was great, couldn’t record the final out in the World Series. The best teams overcome. I’m not betting against Bruce Bochy’s charges.

The one part of all this that’s most deflating for me is the dashed vision of deGrom, Eovaldi, and Gray going 1-2-3 and then 4-5-6 in an October series, with deGrom coming back for Game 7 if needed. Martin Perez is surely capable of fitting in that mix and would have been even with a healthy rotation. I have no doubt that Eovaldi could be that 1-4-7 guy himself. But, man, you sure would feel good about any playoff series against any team if deGrom and Eovaldi were in place to start as many as five of seven games.

MP: It’s gone from “best Rangers playoff rotation of all time” to something more akin to the Aaron Sele-Rick Helling-John Burkett unit from 1998. That is to say: this still profiles as one of the better groups in franchise history and one that can hold its own in a playoff series. It’s just no longer fronted by a guy who could go pitch for pitch with Shane McClanahan or Gerrit Cole. The Rangers don’t need one of those to win, per se. After all, look at the rotation that took this team all the way to that final, squandered out. But it would make things a hell of a lot simpler, especially when a healthy chunk of payroll that could otherwise be earmarked for an upgrade is tied up in a pitcher who won’t step foot on the mound for a long time.

Here’s the rub, though. Let’s cut Texas a break and say Eovaldi maintains this level of performance and Gray keeps the regression to a minimum. There’s still the matter of the two spots behind them—the third, especially. And I’m just not where you are with Perez. His ERA is up to 4.67 after the shellacking he took in Tampa on Sunday. His FIP is 4.90. As you noted on Twitter, he hasn’t been locating well since April, which is the sort of systemic problem that derails everything. 

Except even in that first month, when his ERA was a sparkly 2.41, his FIP was a run and a half higher. The cold reality is last year’s success was built on just 6.5 percent of his fly balls turning into home runs—the fifth-best mark in baseball. That’s terribly difficult for anyone to sustain, let alone a guy who had only kept that number below 12 percent once in a full season of work. Lo and behold, the number has shot back up to 12.5 percent this season. You can work around that if you’re Atlanta ace Spencer Strider, who has a virtually identical rate (12.3) but strikes out plenty of batters along the way. But Perez has never been that sort of guy, and pitchers who don’t miss bats have struggled in the post-shift era, from Perez to the Dodgers’ Julio Urias to Miami’s Cy Young-winning Sandy Alcantara, whose ERA was even higher than Perez’s entering the week. 

So while Perez still has his uses at the back end of a rotation, I don’t think Texas can count on him to figure prominently in its playoff rotation in a post-deGrom world. I’d put Dane Dunning in the same boat, too, even if the surface-level numbers remain strong for the time being. That leaves Andrew Heaney; you’re a wiser man than me if you somehow know what to expect from him the rest of the way, either in terms of health or results. All of which leads me to believe Texas’ best shot at another difference-making postseason starter isn’t in the organization right now.

JN: I’m with you on Perez, especially after this last start in St. Pete. He looked a lot like the guy from his first Rangers tenure, unable—unwilling?—to come inside to keep hitters uncomfortable and missing off the plate the way he did when he’d nibble himself into big innings. 

I’m also with you on the task at hand, especially with Gray now dealing with a blister. He’ll be fine, but those things have a way of resurfacing once they’ve entered the picture. I have very little doubt that Chris Young is waking up every day thinking about ways he can go get a pitcher to start games and another one to close them, preferably from the same team.  

MP: I feel like you already have an idea or three in mind.

JN: Geez, it’s almost as if you think I’m waking up every day cooking up trade ideas myself. (No comment.) The problem, certainly not unique to the Rangers, is that trades this early on the baseball calendar are monumentally expensive to make. There are simply not enough teams less than halfway into the season who have lost belief in 2023. And unlike in fantasy baseball, there’s a potentially damaging cost to raising the white flag prematurely: as a front office, you never want to demonstrate a lack of belief in the guys in your clubhouse. 

There are a few teams that are unquestionably out of the 2023 mix—Oakland, Kansas City, Washington, Colorado—but aside from the lack of frontline pitching those teams have to trade, every one of them should feel emboldened right now to ask the 20 teams considering midseason additions for more than they should. It’s a tough spot.

MP: It is, but the good news is Texas has some cushion both in the standings and in the run differential department (one of the strongest indicators of a quality team) should they need to bide their time for reinforcements. 

The biggest upset is that we’re not putting an outfielder on the shopping list. Because those plate discipline gains by Adolis Garcia look real (I still don’t get him, though), and so does some of the hard contact Leody Taveras is meting out. Zeke Duran is a borderline phenomenon. And while I’m not holding my breath on Travis Jankowski being this effective all season long, if nothing else he eliminates the need to go to market for a fourth outfielder.

I don’t think this is the Rangers’ outfield of the future, per se. But in the present? It’ll more than suffice, especially compared to what we got accustomed to seeing out of that unit in Arlington for the past decade.

JN: It certainly doesn’t pave the way for The Evan Carter (or Aaron Zavala) Watch, which is a good thing. As distinguished, perhaps, from what the combination of the Gray blister and the seven bullpen innings in Monday’s brutal loss to the Ohtanis led to: top-five prospect Owen White debuting sooner than planned. The 23-year-old looked the part last night in relief of Cody Bradford. Had he not been squeezed on a two-strike pitch to Brandon Drury that umpire Lance Barrett had been calling a strike all night, and had Corey Seager not then fumbled the ball while trying to complete a double play, the three runs White allowed don’t score. Those are breaks of the game, not excuses, but the point is White flashed some really good stuff in tough circumstances to make a debut.    

MP: I have no idea what role White ultimately fills, but given the state of the bullpen and the fragility in the rotation, he won’t lack for opportunity. 

We can check back in on him when we do another one of these later in the season.     

The post The Rotation, the Outfield, and the Young Gun on the Mound: A Texas Rangers Conversation appeared first on D Magazine.

After more than a month on the injured list, five bullpen sessions, the birth of his third child, and an MRI last week that revealed a torn UCL, deGrom will prematurely end his first season in Texas with the second Tommy John surgery of his career. He’ll need to make close to an unprecedented comeback to be the pitcher he was. 

“It stinks,” was how the soon-to-be 35-year-old pitcher began when addressing the scribes and TV reporters last week as he fought back tears. He’s not wrong. It absolutely stinks for any club to lose an ace of deGrom’s caliber, let alone one that is sitting atop the A.L. West in early June with the second-best record in baseball and a five-game lead over the rival Astros. 

Now what?

For the time being, the guidance of new skipper Bruce Bochy, the remainder of a revamped rotation, and a record-setting offense have helped Texas not only maintain its high level of play; in fact, the record has improved since deGrom was sidelined. The Rangers were 15-11 on the night deGrom left his start against New York. They have gone 26-12 since.

Still, general manager Chris Young isn’t expected to stand pat. In a radio interview last week with Norm Hitzges and Donovan Lewis on The Ticket, Young was asked about the possibility of enhancing the roster before the August 1 trade deadline. “Ownership has been committed to providing us with resources to win and will continue to do so,” Young said. “I have complete confidence in that. Ray [Davis] wants to win as much as anybody.”

Any conversation regarding reinforcements now must begin in the rotation, even if it has been just fine without deGrom. Nathan Eovaldi and Jon Gray are pitching at an All-Star level, while Dane Dunning, Martin Perez, and Andrew Heaney have shown more than glimpses of success, giving Bochy a solid five. 

There has been recent talk of the club recalling 25-year-old lefty Cody Bradford for a spot start to give the starting staff a day of rest amid a stretch of 30 games with just one scheduled day off until the All-Star break. It’s anyone’s guess how Bradford would respond: the Braves lit him up in his MLB debut last month, but Bradford rebounded in his second outing against Baltimore. The bad news is that outside of Bradford, nobody else on the farm is pushing to make big-league starts. That’s a problem when you consider that Eovaldi and Heaney have injury ledgers that date back years, while the usually durable Gray hit the injured list three times in his debut season in Arlington last year. Texas could be in danger of not having enough depth to survive the summer and hold off the Astros, who, it should be noted, are dealing with their own depth issues in the rotation.

The Rangers must ask themselves whether they want to ride with this rotation, or if they want to find another pitcher who could start a game or two in a playoff series. If it’s the latter, they could start small and call Oakland about righthander Paul Blackburn, who went 7-6 with a 4.28 ERA in 21 starts last season and has posted a 3.60 ERA over 15 innings this season after returning from middle finger and blister injuries. In his last start, Blackburn pitched six scoreless against Milwaukee. 

Or they could go bigger and dial up the Chicago White Sox, who continue to underachieve. Maybe they’ll make pending free agent Lucas Giolito available; the 28-year-old righthander has never matched his breakout 2019 season, when he posted a WAR of 5.2, but he is putting together a solid season despite giving up slightly harder contact than last season. If Texas is after a longer-term solution, it could instead ask about righthander Dylan Cease, last season’s AL Cy Young runner-up whose ERA has nearly doubled from 2022 (2.20) to 2023 (4.38). Still, Cease has premium stuff and doesn’t reach free agency until 2026. The asking price would be steep.

Same goes for Milwaukee ace righthander Corbin Burnes, who acknowledged his testy arbitration hearing with the Brewers this spring hurt his relationship with the franchise. The Brewers would first have to fall out of the race in a weak N.L. Central, and Texas would have to be willing to part with some of its best prospects. Of course, why do that when Young could sell the farm, some big leaguers, Chuck Morgan, and part of Globe Life Field’s retractable roof to the Angels to rent Shohei Ohtani, the best player in the sport, in his last few months before free agency? OK, that one’s probably not happening. 

That said, we could be talking about the wrong brand of pitcher, because the Rangers’ most glaring need remains the bullpen. A crazy plus-144 run differential (the best in the sport) has taken a good deal of pressure off the relievers through the first two and a half months of the season, but it can’t be overlooked that Texas has the fourth-worst bullpen ERA in the A.L. at 4.49, fueled in part by nine blown saves.

So don’t be surprised if Texas calls Kansas City about closer Scott Barlow. Think of him as a souped-up version of Rangers reliever Joe Barlow (no relation), with plenty of swing-and-miss stuff (he’s striking out more than 34 percent of the batters he’s faced) and some control problems, too (a walk rate of 12.1 percent). While Texas is more set on the left side than the right, Young and Co. could also ask the Royals about Aroldis Chapman, whose average velocity is back up to 99.6 mph, which has helped him shave more than a run and a half off his ERA. Any team that acquires him must decide if it and its fan base is comfortable with his being involved in a domestic violence incident with his girlfriend back in 2015, in which Chapman allegedly brandished a handgun. He was suspended 30 games the following year. 

Sticking with the theme of pairs, Texas could also get in on Washington co-closers Kyle Finnegan and Hunter Harvey, the latter of whom figures to be more desirable because of his superior stuff (he’s striking out more than than 31 percent of batters) and years of control (he won’t hit free agency until 2026). Or the Rangers could reach out to Colorado for Brent Suter and Brad Hand. Why the basement-dwelling Rockies shelled out for two 33-year-old relievers is beyond me, but opponents are batting just .209 against Suter, which probably has something to do with his miniscule 0.9 percent barrel rate. Hand, meanwhile, is no longer in his prime like his days in San Diego, but he is striking 12.34 batters per 9 innings.

If Texas makes a trade for a starter, ideally, it would be for more than just a rental. But even if it overpays for a rental, it will absolutely be worth it. This is not a perfect roster minus deGrom, but there is a clear opportunity to make it the best in the American League over the next seven weeks. The Rangers have a deep enough farm to make any move that can be made this summer. The fan base hasn’t been this engaged in nearly a decade. From the manager on down, the clubhouse is full of experienced winners, which goes a long way toward making this a first-place team. Going into the season, nobody was ready to predict Texas was positioned to dethrone the Astros in the division. Now that should be the expectation as the team cruises into mid-June with a five-game lead.

That means buying. A lost road series to Tampa Bay, the best team in baseball, this weekend is not the be-all-end-all, but it does indicate that Texas is not the apex predator of the American League. So it’s safe to assume the club will add two or even three members to the bullpen in the coming weeks. Shaky starts from Heaney and Perez in the series against the Rays underscores the vulnerability at the back of the rotation, too, so don’t be surprised if Texas comes out of the deadline with another starter.

Would all of that be enough to put the Rangers over the top even without their ace? Young, Davis, and everyone in baseball operations owe it to their fans to push the chips to the center of the table. It’s time to take that tall stack and set the market instead of reacting to it. To borrow a catchphrase from yesteryear, it’s time.

The post The Rangers Can Survive—And Thrive—Without Jacob deGrom appeared first on D Magazine.

The practice has hardly gone away in years since, but we’ve also seen teams like San Diego (Fernando Tatis Jr.), Seattle (Julio Rodriguez), and St. Louis (Jordan Walker) give premium prospects a shot right out of the gate instead of playing the old service-time trick. That isn’t to say it doesn’t still happen, or that smart organizations haven’t found ways to adapt. For instance, if I had a frontline prospect I knew was about ready to step in as an everyday player the following season, I’d call him up toward the end of the year for his debut and acclimation to the big leagues–but make sure his stay fell short of 130 at-bats or 50 innings pitched and lasted less than 60 days.

Which is to say, I’d do exactly what the Rangers did with Josh Jung. It could end up paying off with more than just a really good season on the field for the Rangers’ young third baseman, too. Because Jung, now 25, didn’t exhaust his rookie eligibility. Under the current CBA, it’s no longer just a gimmick or the basis for a marketing deck to get behind a player’s chances to win Rookie of the Year. It now gets the team a chance to collect an extra first-round pick.

This year, Seattle will get an added pick, 29th overall, because Rodriguez was the American League Rookie of the Year in 2022. The Braves would have gotten their own bonus pick for Michael Harris II’s NL award, but he didn’t spend the minimum 172 days on the roster and hadn’t been featured on at least two of the preseason top-100 prospects lists compiled by MLB.com, Baseball America, and ESPN, both required under the new “Prospect Promotion Incentive” (PPI) rule.

For an idea of what a pick in that range could generate, aside from added bonus cap dollars to spread around, Yankees rookie Anthony Volpe went No. 30 in Jung’s draft. Rays ace Shane McClanahan went 31st in 2018. Dodgers phenom righty Bobby Miller went 29th in 2020. The Rangers’ top prospect, outfielder Evan Carter, went 50th that year.

Jung was drafted eighth overall in the summer of 2019, but because of the pandemic, there was no minor-league season in 2020. After completing his first full pro season in 2021 at Frisco and then Round Rock, it appeared as if he would compete with Rodriguez for the 2022 rookie award. The lone question about his bat coming out of Texas Tech was whether his opposite-field, aluminum-bat approach as a Red Raider would translate to prototype third-base power in the pros. (That theoretically gave Texas the leverage to sign him for just $4.4 million in a $5,176,900 slot.) Jung did little to dispel that knock in 2019, going deep only twice in 44 Class A games. But in 2021, he hit 19 bombs in just 78 games and was a better hitter in Triple-A (.348 average) than in Double-A (.308). He became a legitimate candidate to be the Rangers’ Opening Day third baseman in 2022.

The new CBA–and its new PPI rule–was ready to roll in March 2022. Jung wasn’t. He had injured his non-throwing shoulder lifting weights that winter and wasn’t ready to start the season. Instead, Charlie Culberson and Andy Ibanez manned third base for the Rangers.

Ultimately, everything worked out quite well. Jung got back on the field in July, hitting nine home runs and driving in 29 runners in 31 games. He showed enough at the plate that the Rangers decided to get his big-league debut, and the expected challenges that come with it, out of the way on September 9. Jung flashed the tools that made him a consensus top-30 prospect in the game coming into the year, but that month in Arlington came with struggles. The player who piled up more walks than strikeouts in college fanned 39 times and drew only four walks in 98 major-league at-bats. He ended the season with a .204 average and a .235 OBP.

But key numbers in the equation were the ones he didn’t reach: 130 at-bats, or 60 days in the major leagues. That preserved his rookie status for 2023. And in the winter, he was a top-100 prospect according to MLB.com (No. 34), Baseball America (No. 66), and ESPN (No. 38), a combination that made Jung one of 14 players eligible in 2023 to net his team a PPI draft pick in 2024. 

As it stands, he’s the only player on that list with a realistic chance of winning AL Rookie of the Year. Only a third of the season has been played, of course, and Volpe or Baltimore’s Gunnar Henderson could turn things around. Or the winner could be a player who wouldn’t qualify his team for the extra pick, like Red Sox outfielder Masataka Yoshida (not because he’ll turn 30 in July, but because international signees aren’t eligible for the draft pick compensation) or Mariners starter Bryce Miller (who didn’t arrive until May 2, a little more than two weeks too late under the PPI rules), though the Rangers dutifully blew his ERA up from 3.00 to 4.46 with another offensive explosion Sunday.

But Jung is arguably the American League’s frontrunner right now. He was the league’s Rookie of the Month in April, and again in May, when he led AL rookies in OPS, slugging, hits, total bases, home runs, and RBI. A blistering 14-game hit streak to finish the month (.434/.492/.793) lifted his season batting average to .295. The player whose pull power was a question coming out of college is among the league leaders in slugging. The Athletic’s Jim Bowden projects him as the AL’s starting third baseman in next month’s All-Star Game.

Jung has hit fifth all year in what has been a historically productive lineup and is making all the plays at third base, establishing himself as a two-way player the way Mark Teixeira did when he arrived in Texas in 2003. Teixeira hit .259 with 26 home runs and a .811 OPS that year, managing only a fifth-place finish in the AL Rookie of the Year vote (behind the largely forgettable foursome of Angel Berroa, Hideki Matsui, Rocco Baldelli, and Jody Gerut). Jung is on pace to outhit, out-homer, and out-OPS Teixeira and the other four.

If Jung were to win the award, he will have achieved the first significant milestone of his career. For his franchise, the reward would be an extra first-round pick next season, when, for the first time since 2017, it isn’t going to have the kind of draft-day power that comes with picking in the top half of the first round. Two months into the 2023 season, a whole lot has gone right for the Rangers. They may already be on their way to having a pretty huge thing go right for 2024 as well.

The post Josh Jung’s Big Rookie Year May Come With a Big Bonus appeared first on D Magazine.

But there is also the hellraising fastball, with 98.7 mph of average velocity, a number most relievers strain to hit, let alone seven-inning starting pitchers. And that 91.8-mph slider, how it turns and torqued, a fighter jet on the attack.

No starter has paired two offerings quite like those together, and deGrom rode the liveliest arsenal in baseball to numbers from the game’s dead-ball era. Only a handful have matched his dominance. The career 2.53 ERA. The preposterous 95-start streak with a 1.95 ERA. The magical 2018 season, when his 1.70 ERA was the second-lowest number for a league ERA champion since Greg Maddux at his apex. The third-best strikeout rate in baseball history among starting pitchers, without the wildness that tends to accompany it.

The Rangers have waited their entire existence for an ace like that. Not Nolan Ryan in his surprisingly radiant golden years, nor Cliff Lee’s four-month cameo, nor flawed demigods like Yu Darvish and Ferguson Jenkins, but an era-defining pitcher to call their own. Never mind that, knowing what we do about baseball, the brilliance was breaking him. Arms are not built to withstand throwing a baseball this hard, this often, with this much action—not even a reconstructed one like deGrom’s. Then again, arms aren’t supposed to be able to do the things deGrom’s can in the first place.

And so the Rangers gambled. Jacob deGrom had not topped 15 starts in a season since before the pandemic, and his former employer went on record two years ago saying that he was pitching with a partial tear in that repaired UCL. The risk was so high that the Rangers could not secure insurance on what would become a five-year, $185 million contract. Hence the arcane sixth-year option they negotiated as an insurance policy—that perhaps they could recoup some value on the back of the deal if deGrom fell apart on their very expensive watch.

But perhaps he could continue on like he had been, creaking and cracking without crumbling. Perhaps he could do even more. Hypotheticals become awfully seductive when they involve someone who can flirt with perfection each night he does step onto the mound.

Now deGrom has succumbed to wear and tear like conventional wisdom suggested he inevitably would. The best-case scenario involves undergoing an internal brace surgery, a fairly new and relatively less severe operation that nevertheless puts deGrom out the rest of this season and, per the Morning News’ Evan Grant, a healthy chunk of next. The worst is a second Tommy John, which features a recovery period in the neighborhood of a year and a half.

Either route is fraught. Consider this database maintained by baseball writer and analyst Jon Roegle, which, among other things, tracks the number of pitchers who have undergone internal brace surgery or a second Tommy John. Per Roegle’s research, 33 MLB players have undergone the former since the Cardinals’ Mitch Harris was the first to attempt it in 2016. The list of double-TJ guys, meanwhile, is 288 names long, dating back to 1989. Each number is a pinprick among the generations of names who have made it to the big leagues. The number of successes? Smaller still. Only 19 of the 33 players who underwent internal brace surgery have returned to the previous competition level they played at prior to the operation. Just 87 of the 146 Tommy John repeaters made it back at any level.

Peruse those lists, and you won’t find a single player of deGrom’s ilk. The odd All-Star notwithstanding, the names are a menagerie of relievers and mid-rotation arms, occasionally interspersed by position players. Perhaps—there’s that word again—talent trumps trauma. But none of them have made a living on such sustained violence, either. Nor did any of the successful recent analogues—the Cubs’ Jameson Taillon, the White Sox’ Mike Clevinger, and deGrom’s Rangers teammate Nathan Eovaldi—undergo those surgeries in their mid-30s the way deGrom will. And, as CBS Sports’ Dayn Perry points out, only five pitchers saw a longer gap between their first and second surgeries—and, by extension, were further removed from the grueling rehab process—than deGrom’s 13 years.

Once again, then, the Rangers need deGrom to be an outlier. He must transcend medical history the way he has baseball history and return as at least a facsimile of his old self, if not the full article. Then he must remain there as he creeps into his late-30s, warding off the conventional damage time and age deal. And then he must hope that his fastball and slider, those beautiful, brutal weapons of choice, don’t send him on the path of Tampa’s Drew Rasmussen, a 27-year-old who was cementing himself as the best-case scenario for two-time Tommy John recoverees until his pitching elbow gave out once again last month.

Because impressive as Texas has been out of the gate, this team is not built to sustain long-term excellence without deGrom. While Eovaldi and Jon Gray each rank among baseball’s top-eight starters by ERA, the underlying metrics strongly point toward regression. The former is a very good pitcher, the latter a strong one, but neither is the world-beating, rotation-heading arm Texas is compensating deGrom to be. It’s too soon to pluck one from the farm, either, at least not until Jack Leiter continues his resurgence over a larger sample or 20-year-old Brock Porter’s ascension carries over to the higher levels of the minors. Barring a mega trade, only deGrom provides the ceiling necessary for the Rangers to achieve their potential in the Marcus Semien-Corey Seager window.

It’s a rickety foundation for the edifice to be built on, this spectacularly broken maestro. There is no telling what comes next, only that the Rangers are on the hook for many tens of millions no matter how much or little deGrom provides them. This may not work. This has to work. And now we wait on science, and a man who has spent a career defying it, to tell the rest of the story.

The post The Rangers Bet Big on an Outlier. Now Jacob deGrom Must Become One Again. appeared first on D Magazine.

Here’s what I’m watching this week:

Friday, 6/2—Men’s College World Series: TCU versus Arizona—9 p.m., ESPN U

The Horned Frogs are the only school to reach the College Football Playoff, the men’s NCAA Tournament, and now the men’s College World Series this year. Will the third time be a charm for a TCU national title? The road begins Friday night.

Sunday, 6/4—Wings at Sun—Noon, NBA TV

It’s a rematch of last season’s playoff series and a date with old friend Ty Harris, whom Dallas shipped to Connecticut this offseason in the three-team deal that netted Natasha Howard and Crystal Dangerfield. Will the Wings return to Arlington with a win in its stiffest road test to date?

Sunday, 6/4—Rangers versus Mariners—1:35 p.m., Bally Sports Southwest

This is a little about the A.L. West, where Texas is six and a half games up on Seattle even as the M’s remain above .500. But it’s a lot about the opposing starter, rookie sensation and East Texas native Bryce Miller, who, per the inimitable Sarah Langs of MLB.com, was the first player since at least 1901 to go at six-plus innings while allowing four hits or fewer in his first five career appearances. Miller got hammered by the Yankees Sunday afternoon, however, which makes it an open question of which version Texas gets in the series finale of this four-game set: the overwhelmed rookie or the starlet who can go toe to toe with de facto ace Nathan Eovaldi.

The post What I’m Watching: Rarefied Horned Frogs Air appeared first on D Magazine.

It was easy to envision the fireballer who is generously listed as 6-foot-1 and is the son of former big-league All-Star Al Leiter fronting the Rangers’ rotation sooner than later. With a fastball sitting in the upper 90s to go with a hellacious curveball, Leiter was the ace of a Vanderbilt team that reached the championship series of the College World Series in ’21. The redshirt freshman dominated, striking out 179 in 110 innings while boasting a 2.13 ERA. 

(That rotation also featured Kumar Rocker, whom Texas selected third overall in the 2022 draft a year after Rocker was selected by–but did not agree to terms–with the New York Mets. Alas, the Vanderbilt teammates will have to wait a while before reuniting in the big leagues after Rocker underwent Tommy John surgery on his pitching elbow.) 

After signing a contract that included a $7.92 million bonus, Leiter was sent to Double-A Frisco to begin his professional career. He made his RoughRiders debut in 2022, and after allowing two runs in seven innings over his first two starts, he appeared to be everything the Rangers had hoped. But the next four months could only be described as a disappointment. Sure, he logged a few decent outings, and he was part of a Frisco team that claimed the Texas League Championship. But Leiter finished 2022 with a 3-10 record and a 5.54 ERA. Once the Rangers dished out $263 million on starting pitchers Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi, Andrew Heaney, and Martin Perez, it became obvious that Leiter wouldn’t be coming to Arlington any time soon.

All Leiter could do was re-rack entering his second pro season. Once again, he began the season with Frisco after getting a big-league invite to spring training. And as was the case for the bulk of his 2022 campaign, he didn’t look great to start the season. Leiter lacked control with his fastball, issuing 14 walks in 20 innings over his first four starts. He showed some improvement in that department in his final April start, issuing one walk, but he was tagged for five runs in four innings in a loss to Amarillo. When the month ended, Leiter was 0-2 with a 6.75 ERA. Opponents hit .282 off of him with an OPS of .949. Less than two years after being a celebrated selection, his new priority was proving he belonged in a Double-A rotation. 

Then Leiter flipped the switch. In May, we’ve finally seen glimpses of that ace potential. On May 5, he logged six scoreless innings at Midland by attacking with his fastball, yielding three hits, walking two, and fanning seven. The next time out he did not allow an earned run in five innings at home against Wichita. He issued just two free passes and struck out eight. He followed that up with some electric stuff in six innings against Amarillo. Although he gave up a three-run homer, Leiter struck out a career-high 10 and walked just one. 

What was more noticeable than his plus velocity and a wicked curveball, which we hadn’t seen since his Vanderbilt days, was the swagger and joy he displayed on the mound. That might’ve been the happiest we’ve seen him in a Riders jersey.

So, what’s different? After Leiter’s May 17 start, I made my way up the Dallas North Tollway to speak with new pitching coach Jon Goebel. And while there have been noticeable changes in Leiter’s approach and mechanics, his mentality has laid the foundation for everything.

“You hear a lot of, man, that guy needs to pitch with confidence,” Goebel says. “Do you just make that confidence up out of nothing, or do you need to start finding some success in little areas? Like little Easter eggs here and there that would lead you to believe that there’s light at the end of the tunnel that allows you to start thinking about being more confident.”

Goebel adds that Leiter was doing a lot of things behind the scenes that don’t show up in the box score. “He wasn’t getting the immediate results,” he says, “but he was able to have the mental fortitude to know that the process was in a good place. Now that he’s had some good results, that kind of unlocks the further part of the puzzle of confidence. Now between starts he isn’t trying to fix four or five things.”

The few times I’ve spoken with Leiter in media scrum settings, he has come across as business-like, almost like he was making a conscious effort not to show too much personality.  Because he comes from a family with a rich baseball pedigree, I assumed he learned early on how to say something to a reporter without saying much at all. Intensity can be a good thing for a young player, but so often last season and in the first part of this one, Leiter appeared to be wound tighter than most. According to Goebel, that perception isn’t wrong. But the reality might be evolving

“Jack takes his craft and career very seriously. And he has very high expectations for himself,” Goebel says. “With the recent success of his last couple of outings, it’s allowed him to let his guard down a little bit. He’s never going to let it all the way down because that’s what makes him a competitor. In the clubhouse, around his teammates, on his non-start days you can tell he has a greater sense of enjoyment around the game because he doesn’t feel like he’s beating his head into the wall. He has an elite-level work ethic. Work ethic is awesome, but sometimes being able to take a step back, zoom out, and take a broader scope helps. And he’s been able to do that of late.” 

That’s evident in a change to Leiter’s repertoire. In that Wichita outing, he threw 18 curveballs to just six sliders, a reversal of the slider-heavy approach he used for much of the season. The hook put Leiter on the map at Vanderbilt. According to Goebel, returning to it is a sign of a pitcher taking the next step in his career.

“Last year what he struggled with was the adjustment from college to pro,” he says. “All of a sudden instead of 45 percent chase on that pitch, you get 20. So you’re getting less strikes and less chase because of a smaller zone. He’s realized the success of my curveball is not to make the pro guys chase it. Instead, throw it in the strike zone with conviction. Understanding he gets a little amount of damage and a lot of take strikes with it, so you can throw it in with confidence, knowing you don’t have to be perfect with it.”

Leiter has made another, subtler adjustment to his delivery. Instead of quickly powering through his windup, he is taking more time to raise his throwing hand and glove over his head before driving downhill. The pace matters as much as the mechanics. 

“He’s learning that smooth is fast, and fast is too fast,” Goebel says. “He’s learning his best fastball is coming from more of a toned-down delivery. We use the Mozart-Metallica effect because he was very Metallica-Metallica before in his delivery.” 

Mozart-Metallica cleaned up Leiter’s command issues with the fastball. Instead of falling behind in counts, he was throwing Strike 1 more often, to the tune of five walks to 25 strikeouts over 17 innings in a three-start stretch. “Now he’s getting pissed off by three-ball counts,” Goebel adds. 

Which makes me believe that Leiter was plenty upset with his outing on Tuesday evening in Arkansas. He walked seven over four innings against the Travelers (although he was squeezed at times). Yet somehow he gave up just one run and one hit in a 2-1 road win. Leiter is touting a 1.71 ERA in May after posting that hefty 6.75 ERA in the five April starts.

Now we wait to see how Leiter responds in his next outing. Will he be able to tap into the joy we have seen in three starts this month? Or will we see a guy who struggles to control his fastball and doesn’t pitch deep into games? 

Rarely does a baseball prospect have a straight arrow up, but at some point the Rangers need to see a long stretch of positive results from Leiter. I think it’s fair to say not reaching the Triple-A level this year would be deemed a disappointment. Hopefully the young man loads some “Requiem” and “Kill ’Em All” into his playlist heading into June. Or maybe just download Metallica’s S&M album from 1999 to find the right balance. Bam! Think we just solved that problem. Now, about that Ranger bullpen. 

The post Jack Leiter, the Rangers’ Ace of the Future, Is Course Correcting appeared first on D Magazine.

Here’s what I’m watching this week:

Tuesday, 5/23—Rangers at Pirates—5:35, Bally Sports Southwest

Nathan Eovaldi may not be the ace the Rangers hoped for, but with Jacob deGrom languishing on the IL, he’s the one Texas has right now. And that’s all well and good when Eovaldi has pitched like one of the most dominant starters in baseball this season. Will he cross the seven-inning threshold for the fifth start in a row? Given the state of the bullpen, the Rangers probably need him to.

Tuesday, 5/23—Stars versus Golden Knights, Game 3—7 p.m., ESPN

The Stars know a thing or two about rallying from playoff deficits, having dropped the first game in each of their previous two series. What they haven’t done is dig out of a 0-2 hole—and only four teams in NHL history have come back from an 0-3 deficit. Tonight is do-or-die for Dallas.

Friday, 5/26—Wings at Storm—9 p.m., ION

Sam Hale pointed out the red flags after Saturday’s season-opening win against Atlanta. Will they rear their head again in Seattle against high-scoring Jewel Lloyd?

The post What I’m Watching: Nathan For You appeared first on D Magazine.

The bullpen, after a solid couple of weeks to start the season, has been, uhh, less inspiring. The hole in the Rangers’ swing for a first playoff berth in seven years couldn’t be clearer. A sense of urgency is warranted, but it can’t speed up a solution. The problem isn’t just how; it’s when.

The good news for Texas, nearly 50 games into the season, is that starting pitching and the bats have limited the number of nights on which the bullpen has had to work with the game in the balance. Led by the league-leading offense and six starting pitchers who have each had at least one start of zero earned runs (10 of those in all), the Rangers finished the weekend with a two-game division lead over the Astros.

But the advantage should be twice that, if not more. Texas has won five of its last seven series (tying one) and nine of its last 12; the three the club didn’t win (Cincinnati, Arizona, Atlanta) each featured epic, demoralizing bullpen meltdowns. The bullpen has been the culprit for four walk-off losses and six in which the Rangers led after seven innings. Through the weekend’s sweep of the Rockies, Texas relievers had more losses (nine) than the starters (eight). 

So it shouldn’t surprise you to hear that Rangers relievers have blown eight of 17 save opportunities. Jose Leclerc and Jonathan Hernandez, two pitchers who should be in their prime years, went into the season as the leading candidates to hold down the eighth and ninth inning. Instead, both have pitched their way out of high-leverage roles and into mop-up duties to try to rediscover their command and some hint of effectiveness. 

Bad bullpens happen (though usually not to this extreme). The reason it’s such a gut punch right now is the Rangers are one of the best teams in baseball. 

And it’s not as if the relief corps has been racked by injury. Brett Martin and Jake Odorizzi were lost for the year before it began, but neither was earmarked for an irreplaceable role. The biggest loss has been Dane Dunning, who was pressed into the rotation early this month after deGrom landed on the Injured List. Bruce Bochy, known for his touch in managing bullpens, has had little choice but to bounce relievers in and out of roles as he searches for a productive mix.

But even if every reliever had pitched to form so far, no staff remains intact for even half a season, and the Rangers didn’t do much in the middle of this winter’s free-agent market to deepen their relief attack. It was a curious decision for a team that announced expectations to win in 2023. Texas had the most relief losses in baseball last year, converting only 55 percent of its save opportunities (tied for third worst). And rather than add to the bullpen (until bringing Will Smith well after spring training was underway), the Rangers allowed Matt Moore, one of their two best relievers, to leave for a one-year, $7.55 million free-agent deal with the Angels. Moore’s new teammate in Los Angeles, Reyes Moronta, who pitched for Bochy in San Francisco, was in camp this spring with Texas on a non-roster deal but didn’t make the team. After four dominant Triple-A innings for the Angels (one hit, one walk, nine strikeouts), he’s up with the big club.

The fact that the league as a whole is converting saves at only a 61 percent rate is no solace. The reality is that with bullpens having trouble across the league, the competition among contenders to raid bad teams of effective relievers will be intense. And the trade market is unlikely to start coming together for at least another month, as there just aren’t enough teams willing to write off 2023 yet. 

So, for the time being, any improvements must come from within the organization. John King and Joe Barlow—the latest to contribute to the bullpen woes—are back from Triple-A Round Rock and getting opportunities to reclaim high-leverage work, which has less to do with their readiness than no one else getting the job done. The next wave probably begins with Taylor Hearn, who has been good since being sent to Round Rock, allowing two earned runs (1.02 ERA) on 12 hits (.191 batting average) and eight walks over 17 2/3 innings, fanning 20.

There are other options on the farm, but no prospect is beating the door down. Round Rock relievers Chase Lee and Grant Anderson along with Marc Church at Double-A Frisco could factor in later this season. Church’s teammates Antoine Kelly and Alex Speas have late-inning stuff but are walking too many batters.

Grant Wolfram is a name to keep tabs on. The five-year pro was just promoted to Triple-A for the first time, and even though he is left-handed, he’s been deadly against right-handed hitters this year (.087 batting average and 21 strikeouts in 55 matchups). Finding relievers who can get righties out seems most important right now, as lefties Smith, Brock Burke (who has nevertheless taken a noticeable step back from last season), and Cole Ragans (with the exception of two particularly bad outings) have generally been better than their right-handed counterparts, especially with Dunning in the rotation for now.

But Texas can’t mount much of a pennant race without credible arms from the right side, too. So the news that veteran Kyle Funkhouser, who signed a non-roster deal in January while rehabbing a shoulder injury that cost him the 2022 season with Detroit, could embark on a rehab assignment in the next week or two is particularly interesting. The 29-year-old is more of a groundballer than a swing-and-miss type, but the Rangers won’t be picky if a reliever comes in throwing strikes and getting outs. Right-handers Glenn Otto and Spencer Howard are reportedly close to rehab assignments themselves (as is veteran southpaw Danny Duffy); will the Rangers look to gradually stretch them out in their familiar starting roles, or see how things might look in relief?

Based on his early dominance for High-A Hickory, Kumar Rocker probably would have been in Frisco’s rotation by June—and possibly in the media conversation for a late-season debut in the Rangers’ bullpen. That was always going to be an unlikely move for the front office, but now it’s out of the question, as the third overall pick in last year’s draft was shut down with an elbow injury early this month that called for Tommy John surgery. (It’s not a disaster; pitchers have the procedure all the time. And for once, the Rangers have enough starting pitching that Rocker’s setback doesn’t really hurt in the short term.  Sucks for Kumar, of course.)

Ultimately, though, it’s hard to imagine a dramatic turnaround on the back end without going to the trade market. Saves are being blown all over baseball, so if and when the Reds decide to make Alexis Diaz available, they’ll be emboldened to ask for a return that would fetch starting pitchers or impact bats. The Rangers would never trade Ezequiel Duran for relief pitching—at this point, he might be close to unavailable, even if some growing pains are likely in his future—but would they part with someone like Luisangel Acuna or Justin Foscue for Diaz (controllable through 2027) and, say, short-term middle reliever Buck Farmer (a free agent this winter)? They might have to, with as many teams as there are likely to be chasing Diaz or anyone else at his level. White Sox late reliever Kendall Graveman, who has a year and a half left on his contract, would presumably come cheaper, but might still take someone like Thomas Saggese or Cole Winn to get him. 

Is a few months of Aroldis Chapman, now a Kansas City Royal, worth someone like young power righty Emiliano Teodo? Teodo and third baseman Gleider Figuereo for Chapman and three seasons of hard-throwing reliever Josh Staumont?

It would be convenient if the Pirates (David Bednar, Dauri Moreta) and Diamondbacks (Andrew Chafin, Miguel Castro) started losing. That would be cool. But they’re basically the NL versions of the Rangers, and will probably be looking to add at the trade deadline, not subtract. 

It’s going to be a tricky summer on the trade front. And there will be gut checks. The beauty of the dilemma is that it’s a dilemma. The Rangers, I think we can safely acknowledge, are really good. They also have a really clear area for improvement that, if left unaddressed, could threaten how high this team climbs—assuming it can maintain its foothold.

The post The Rangers’ Leaky Bullpen Needs Saving—And Soon appeared first on D Magazine.

He is survived by his wife of 56 years, by three kids and four grandkids, and by pieces of himself, which, to varying degrees and in different ways, are built into each of us. One of them is sports.

Among my earliest memories are the every-Saturday trips with Dad to the Schepps convenience store at Midway and 635 for something out of the ice cream freezer. In 1976, at my suggestion, that ritual changed to a weekly pack of Topps. Baseball in the spring. Football in the fall. Cardboard gum bricks all year. 

Dad didn’t collect cards. He wasn’t a star athlete. We didn’t go to games unless someone else invited us to tag along. But we never missed the Cowboys on TV, preseason through playoffs, and it was almost always with another family or two, along with tons of food. A reliable blast—and it didn’t hurt that the Cowboys were great in the mid-’70s. 

That didn’t prevent Dad—and Mike, or Joe, or Harrell, or whoever we were watching the game with that weekend—from coming unglued if Efren Herrera shanked one wide right or Bob Breunig failed to wrap up the ball carrier on what turned into a 40-yard house call. 

“Dad, c’mon,” I’d plead, not interested in deflating the fun. “He didn’t try to miss that tackle.”

But even if I didn’t realize it, I was learning a behavior. And a passion.

My final, futile objection to the intensity, with all its highs and lows, that Dad watched football with was lodged on one of those Saturdays as we pulled into Schepps. I remember this moment like it was Robert Newhouse taking the pitch left and winging a perfect 30-yard dime to Golden Richards for six. 

“Dad, how many of the Cowboys do you know?” I asked, excited for whatever the answer was going to be.

“Personally?” 

Yep. 

“None.”

Wait, what?

“Then why do you care so much if they win?”

I remember the parking space we were in, but I don’t remember his answer to that question. I’m pretty sure, though, that it informed, inspired, authorized a new way that I was about to start clothing myself in sports. Investing that much intensity into sports—competing, training, watching, collecting, debating, caring—was OK. Because Dad did it.

As I said in my eulogy, in his final month, Dad asked me on every visit how the Rangers had done the night before. If it were football season, it’s a question he might have asked his caretakers. But even though baseball wasn’t his favorite sport, it was one of his favorite subjects with me. It was sports, after all — a gift he’d given me, a thing I learned to love by seeing him love it. A thing we shared. I fully believe Dad religiously asked last month if the Rangers had won because he knew if they did, that meant my own day was a little better. And that made it a good day for Dad.

Like most of my friends, I played every sport as a kid, but baseball is the one that really grabbed me. Dallas not having an NBA team probably made basketball feel more like a P.E. sport, and the Tornado weren’t on TV enough to galvanize me the way baseball did. I wanted to be Roger Staubach (even well after he retired, truth be told), but Mom wasn’t having that. So Robin Yount and Paul Molitor it was. (The Rangers’ post-Toby Harrah revolving door at shortstop was less inspiring.)

My first job was scorekeeping Little League games at Churchill or Northaven on the nights I wasn’t playing. I’d fall asleep listening to the Rangers on WBAP. I bought the Street & Smith’s Baseball Preview off the Taylor’s Bookstore magazine rack every February and subscribed to The Sporting News to read Peter Gammons and Joe Falls. 

Baseball was mine. But first, sports were Dad’s and mine.

Now, and for the last 18 years, it’s my son Max’s, too. He played his final high-school baseball game five days ago. It was the culmination of 16 years of growing in the game—and through it. I know the feeling. 

When I was about Max’s age, baseball went abruptly and unkindly from being a focal part of every day to … not. I still remember the playoff game that ended my career, two-thirds of my life ago, like it was last week. 

Just as vivid is the memory of getting home after the bus ride back to the school and the talk through tears with Dad and Mom, about a season that had ended sooner than wanted and the shock of accepting that there was no next game, no next season. Wrapping heads around all of the successes, the adversities, the matchlessness of team, and the rewards of pushing through.

My wife and I might have had a similar conversation with Max a few nights ago.

But I’m not able to tell Dad about Max’s final game. He would have liked to talk about it. I would have liked to talk about it. Sports was language for Dad long before baseball was vocabulary. He missed no more of the 250 games I played than I did of the 500 Max played. Decades later, there was a time when a seat at Max’s games and at the theater performances of my daughter, Erica, were givens. Parkinson’s Disease gradually made attendance less frequent, but the recaps were automatic subject matter.

Not anymore, though. I already miss it. A lot.

I was reading something the other day to help me process the erratic introduction of grief that Dad’s death has brought on. One sentence stuck out: “All deaths occur in the middle of a conversation.” I don’t think Anne Brener had my son’s high school games or the Cowboys’ playoff chances in mind when she wrote that, but for me, there were two constants in my conversations with Dad, especially in the last year as his cognition began to soften: the latest on what my kids were up to, and sports. Often, those two things fused. We were still in the middle of that conversation, one that started gaining a lifetime of momentum 50 years ago in a convenience store parking lot.

Will baseball remain in Max’s life, in some form, just as it has for me? “Strong yes” is my guess, if we’re taking bets. He has a passion for the game and its nuances, and it already has rewarded him on so many levels. I won’t sit here and declare that the game is in him simply because the game is in me; baseball wasn’t really something my father handed down to me, after all, and I still found my way to it. But I’m pretty sure there’s a predisposition that made its way from Dad to his only grandson. Max doesn’t call me out for voicing my irritation at a big-league bullpen meltdown or a personal foul on third-and-long, like I would have with Dad, but I have a pretty good idea what he’s thinking from the other end of the couch. Because I remember being that kid, processing and judging my own father’s overreactions to bad sports moments, before I adopted the character flaw myself (and, admittedly, took it to a new level).  

At Dad’s service, I shared a few lines that Bono wrote in a song for his own dying father 20 years ago:

Can you hear me when I sing?

You’re the reason I sing

You’re the reason why the opera is in me

I explained that my opera, one inherited from Dad, is to be there for my family. That family is everything.

It was only in the interest of time that I didn’t add there is clearly a second opera, handed down by example from Dad, that was hardwired in me at an early age: the allure of sports. The emotional swings and the drama. The artistry. The brand loyalty. The goals, the dreams. The adversity and the response and the virtual perfection of the idea of team.

I think it’s probably in Max, too. The path has been different, but the destination the same. In whatever new forms it’s bound to take.

The post Dad, the Sports Gene, and Me appeared first on D Magazine.

Here’s what I’m watching this week:

Monday, 5/8—Rangers at Mariners—8:40 p.m., Bally Sports Southwest

The other Dallas-Seattle series has more than a few storylines worth monitoring, and perhaps none more so than the Sahara Desert-level heat emanating from Leody Taveras’ bat. On April 19, Sean Bass wrote a piece titled “It’s Now or Never For Leody Taveras in Center Field,” which was about what you’d expect it to be about. Well, since that day, the 24-year-old is hitting a scorching .373/.448/.569, highlighted by a four-hit, four-RBI game to pace Texas’ 16-8 smackdown of the Angels on Sunday. Problem solved, right?

Maybe. True, Taveras has been one of the best hitters in baseball over the last three weeks. He’s also been among the luckiest, and that’s even more true over the course of the season, where his weighted on-base average of .364 is 60 points higher than expected, which is more than enough difference between a really good hitter and one struggling to get by. That said, both of those numbers have risen substantially over this run, so if nothing else, Taveras is doing the right kind of work to keep his spot in the lineup.

Will it hold? If not, how good is he, really? The next step toward finding answers begins tonight.

Tuesday, 5/9—Stars at Kraken, Game 4—8:30 p.m., ESPN

Thus far, the beats of this series are eerily similar to those from Dallas’ first-round triumph over Minnesota: a thrilling Game 1 overtime loss, a Game 2 bounce-back, a disastrous Game 3. So if the Stars stick to the script, expect Jake Oettinger to carry them to a Game 4, series-tying victory. If they don’t? The golf course will be beckoning.

Saturday, 5/13—FC Dallas at Austin FC—7:30 p.m., Apple TV+

It’s the first meeting between these in-state rivals since Austin bounced Dallas from last year’s MLS playoffs. Need I say more?

The post What I’m Watching: Leody’s Leap? appeared first on D Magazine.