Thursday newsletter time: Rangers didn’t have a longer All-Star break in 2022
(AP photo/Jeffrey McWhorter)
No baseball is no fun, but the All-Star break goes until Friday. Time to catch up on Archer.
It isn’t just MLB teams that are off. Full-season minor-league affiliates are breaking, too. Those who are really yearning for baseball can dig into the Arizona Complex League and the Dominican Summer League, which resume play today.
Sebastian Walcott is always worth watching, assuming he and the other ACL Rangers don’t melt. It’s supposed to be 113 today in Surprise, Ariz., and that’s the coldest forecast high until Monday.
The Rangers did not get to enjoy the Thursday off day after the All-Star Game last season. They had to go to Miami for a single game to begin making up the road series that was canceled because of the length of the lockout. Martin Perez and Corey Seager were 2022 All-Stars and were required to fly in from Los Angeles for the game.
Neither played.
The Rangers then hopped on a plane and flew across the country to Oakland, where they lost 2 of 3 and then went to Seattle and got swept in a three-game series. Geez.
I went to Arizona to catch up with Josh Jung, who was rehabbing his shoulder injury. It was 112 the day I was there. Dane Acker, who was recovering from Tommy John surgery, pitched that night in the ACL.
What a difference a year makes, except on the thermometer.
Thursday workout
The Rangers are holding a workout this evening to knock the rust off from the All-Star break. The six All-Stars are not required to attend.
There is some business to discuss, namely how the Rangers plan to roll out their rotation for the weekend series against the Guardians.
Left-hander Martin Perez would be the most rested after having not pitched since July 2. Jon Gray last pitched in Boston, where he left Fenway Park frustrated after being beaten by soft contact.
The Rangers probably want two right-handers to throw next week against Tampa Bay after watching the Rays knock around Perez and Andrew Heaney in June.
The Guardians, meanwhile, are 20 points worse against left-handers (.236). Heaney, Gray and Perez might work against Cleveland, and then Dane Dunning, Nathan Eovaldi and Heaney could face the the Rays.
Why Dunning before Eovaldi? July 20 is an off day, which could push Eovaldi to the opener of a three-game series at Houston on July 24.
That’s all Rangers Today conjecture. We’ll know more later today.
More A’s drama
The mayor of Oakland met with MLB commissioner Rob Manfred in Seattle for the first since the A’s made plans to move to Las Vegas, and she brought receipts.
The Athletic and the San Francisco Chronicle spoke with Sheng Thao, who presented Manfred with documents that detailed the city’s plans to keep the A’s. She included one that blows up the notion that the city didn’t have a stadium plan, as Manfred has said publicly.
Oakland has not told MLB where it intends to play before the new Las Vegas stadium is built, and that must be addressed. Oakland would become a location for an expansion team if the A’s do leave, and Manfred said that baseball is planning to grow by two teams once the Oakland and Tampa Bay stadium issues are resolved.
The A’s staying in Oakland doesn’t seem as remote as it did before Thao intervened.
Why not compel the A’s to stay, with the promise of a new ballpark, and give Las Vegas an expansion team? Why not tell A’s owner John Fisher that he can move to the Oakland club to Las Vegas once expansion is green-lighted and work with Thao on a new ballpark for an expansion team that would retain the A’s name?
There is probably a mountain of reasons why those two suggestions wouldn’t work, but that’s for lawyers like Manfred to sort out.
Doggy video!
Me on the first day of my next vacation, whenever that might be. Enjoy.
Nailed it..🐶🐾😅 pic.twitter.com/w0CpcZAffU
— 𝕐o̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) July 12, 2023
Jeff Wilson, jeff@rangerstoday.com
