| Doug Benton. 29th June, 2005 - 5:29 am
 Texas Rangers pitcher Kenny Rogers recently broke a bone in his non-pitching hand when he tried to take on a water cooler after coming out of his last start against Washington. Rogers will miss at least one start, but this won?t hurt the Rangers as much as his immature actions have.
At 40 years old, Rogers in the elder statesman in the Rangers clubhouse and a second pitching coach to his the rest of the rotation. However, the message Rogers sent on June 17th was that it is acceptable to lose your composure during the game and jeopardize your team?s chances of making a playoff run this season.
The Rangers are now 7 ? games back of the surging Angels after a 13-3 loss at home on Monday night. Now the Rangers will have to keep pace without their ace and most experienced pitcher, who decided to leave his teammates out high and dry with these actions. Rogers, who is 9-3 with a 2.46 ERA, was having another superb season and was having talks with Rangers? brass about a new contract. Now he will have to watch from the sideline as an inexperienced and below average staff try to keep the team in the hunt for at least the wild card until their ace is able to return.
Now, the Rangers still possess a very potent offense, which can carry them for weeks at a time and will be counted on come through again. However, you need pitching to win games and stop losing streaks if the offense goes into a funk.
Without their stopper in Rogers, the Rangers will probably turn to 6-foot-10 Chris Young to take the role of ace at least to the all-star break.
The Rangers have been one of the best stories in baseball after the way they got rid of Alex Rodriguez and improved on their win total the next year. This year looked to be the year they would get back to the playoffs and make noise with their bats and Rogers on the hill. This injury doesn?t have to be the end of it, but it still is a roadblock for a franchise that always seems to be fighting not to fall back. I for one had hoped Rogers would be the one pushing them over the hill, not pushing them back down it. |
