The picture above is what a lot of people consider the best coaching staff the Rangers have had, because it’s (for the most part) the one that led us to the playoffs in the 90’s. The last direct link to that era is now gone. As you have to have known already before you read this, Rudy Jaramillo is out as the hitting coach of the Rangers. A lot has been made about the offensive problems this team has had in 2009. I can’t blame that on Rudy.

A few times in the last two years I’ve wondered if a change in voice is necessary. I don’t think anyone doubts that Rudy is one of the best hitting coaches around. But too much of a good thing isn’t always the best. Yeah, it’s a weak argument I make – I know that. But as much as I didn’t want to see him go, I wonder what a change in voice will bring.

Which brings us to the obvious next question. Who will replace him? I can think of nobody better. The Red Baron himself, Rusty Greer. He’s a Jaramillio pupil, so the overall message won’t be that radically different. He’s enormously well respected with the players, he’s a fan favorite – still. I think he’d be a great coach. Of course, we had Ted Willams as a manager early on, and those teams couldn’t hit either. But you have to replace Jaramillo with someone, and I think Thurman Clyde Greer III would go over well. Julio Borbon would have to give up his number, but I think they should have retired 29, anyway.

From what I can gather, it appears the Rangers offered Rudy a one year contract, I expect he thinks (probably so) that he’s worth more than that, and declined. I’m sure the places that have been mentioned as needing a new hitting coach will splurge to pick him up.

If hitting gets worse in 2010, expect there to be a lot of noise about this move at that time.

EDIT: Evan Grant mentions Will Clark, too. That’s a great idea, I didn’t even consider him.

It’s pretty bad when this picture below is the SINGLE OFFENSIVE HIGHLIGHT over the last four games. It’s David Murphy rounding the bases on his HR trot from Wednesday night. It’s the only run we’ve scored in the last four games.

Sunday: Lose 5-0 (Game 2 of DH)
Monday: Lose 9-0
Tuesday: Lose 6-1
Wednesday: Lose 4-0

That’s just bad. Even the Pittsburgh Pirates aren’t that bad.

One of my good friends lives in Seattle, and is a Red Sox fan. One of those ones who, if he could afford it, give up his job and follow them on the road like they were the Grateful Dead. ;) Anyway, he sent me this comment about the Rangers broadcasts. I wanted to pass it along, to let people know that others appreciate our guys here, locally.

The games notwithstanding, I had the occasion to listen to your radio team over the course of this series as XM only plays the home team radio broadcast. I liked the work those two guys do. I think they do a good job and were easy to listen to. Thumbs up.

UPDATE: After I posted this, I IM’ed the guy and told him I posted it. He then went on and had a few more kind things to say. From the words he used, he seemed to be mostly describing stuff Eric Nadel has done for years.

They really are (great) though, Joe. They paint a picture of the game, instead of talking about nonsense all the way through, with occasional game updates. I like guys that immerse me in the game, that’s what I want, to have a description that lets me paint a mental picture. He described stances, swing types, weather, eveything. So, so good at his craft. And I mean that, craft. He is one of two guys that have ever told me that the team is wearing red tops today,as they do every Saturday at home. Only two guys in the league pick that stuff up.

Last night I was watching Baseball Tonight, and noticed that ESPN has no love for David Murphy. They were talking about how the juggling of the lineup last night produced something good for our team. Then they threw up this graphic of the lineup from two nights ago, and the one for last night.

Daniel Murphy? Man – someone obviously is asleep at the wheel over at ESPN on that one..

I got bored tonight. Got into Photoshop. :)

Since you can’t improve on God’s word, I will just offer this small prayer for Josh Hamilton.
Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)
Here’s why I posted this.

Strikeout.
Strikeout.
Strikeout.
Sit on bench for a few minutes.
Strikeout.
Ground out.
Pop Up.
Boatload of pitches at 98-100. 30 in all over two innings. 21 for strikes. Not bad for a guy carrying a Dora the Explorer bag. Not bad AT ALL!

I believe we’ve found the reason why Chris Davis had so many strikeouts, and his batting average was down in 2009. It wasn’t his swing, the league adjusting. It was the fact that he apparently is seriously into Mariah Carey.

I mean – check out this video below that was sent to me from the site “12 Angry Mascots“. It appears to be some sort of stealth cam interview with Chris where he says how much he’s into Mariah Carey.

Here’s what I think about Mariah Carey. Really pretty girl. Has a chest that can stop time. Her voice? I have no problems with her voice. She can sing quite well. But the music she actually sings? Shoot me now. In even writing this news story, I’ve had to put on the new Black Sabbath album just to get through it.

I then decided to look into what else he listens to. Found out his walkup song when he was here was a track called “I Got it” by someone called “Gorilla Zoe“. It’s actually worse than Mariah Carey. As bad as Carey’s music is, there’s something nice to look at when you’re (unfortunately) forced to look at it. This other song – no such bonus.

I’ve taken it upon myself to suggest a few pallete cleansers in the mp3 widget below. The first two songs are the Carey & Gorilla tracks, and then eight others I suggest would make far better listening. Some are metal, some are classic rock, there’s a jazz song in there, too. Check it out.

I’ll wrap up with this. I was going to suggest Chris talk to some other players about it. My first thought lept to CJ Wilson, as he leads the Guitar Hero things a lot, and then I went to his Myspace page, and saw he has Lady Gaga in his mp3 player. There goes that cred. ;)

In the best move I think we could have made, the Rangers did not send Derek Holland to Toronto for Roy Halladay. When the time passed, I heard Hannah Baugh being really excited from here.
I do have a question, how did you spend the time leading up to the deadline? For me, I was sitting in my living room with my laptop showing the live feed from MLB Network (they had it online), and also had mlbtraderumors in another window. (I was playing games on my Xbox 360 at the same time). What was cool is the MLBN video feed also has a combined twitter feed from all over the place, so you’d get flash updates from there at the same time.
How did you spend the afternoon watching the time leading up? Post in the comments, please.

I woke up at 4:30AM this morning, and couldn’t get back to sleep. So in my coffee induced living coma, I decided to vote a ton of times for Ian Kinsler. I can’t recall offhand exactly how many times I voted, but it was up around 100 or so, and that was just in this sitting.
According to latest story, Ian is still in the lead in the AL voting. Let’s keep him there.
My NL vote is for Shane Victorino, by the way.