The Texas Rangers will kick off their 2005 campaign tonight against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, formerly the Anaheim Angels, formerly the California Angels, formerly the Los Angeles Angels. Despite the name-shuffling of their season-opening opponent, however, the Texas team taking the field this evening is not too far gone from the ball club that saw the American League West title slip away late last September to — you guessed it — the Angels.
In what has become the only Major League Baseball match-up to excite Dallas-area fans in the last decade, right-hander Bartolo Colon will take the mound for Los Angeles/Anaheim and try to hold a rising corps of Rangers’ hitters in check. If recent history is any indicator, however, Colon should have no problem with a team that hit 227 home runs with 825 runs batted in last year.
In 2004, Colon got one-third of his 18 wins against the hot-hitting Rangers; a 6-0 record with an earned run average of 2.14 at the hands of the hometown team is nothing to scoff at, and catcher Rod Barajas knows there is something at stake against Bartolo and the Angels — even in the first of 162 games on the year.
“Last year, they were the ones who knocked us out of the hunt,” he said in an mlb.com interview, “so we want to go out there and prove to them that it’s not going to happen again.
“We are a better ball club and we are more prepared than we were last year and will be going strong this year.”
What’s more, Colon has managed to shut down the heart of the Texas batting order over the course of his career with the Indians, White Sox and Angels. Third baseman Hank Blalock has three hits in 17 lifetime at-bats, outfielders David Dellucci and Kevin Mench are each 3-for-10, first baseman Mark Teixeira is a lifetime 2-for-13 while shortstop Michael Young has recorded five base hits in 19 career at-bats against the 5-foot-11, 240-pound Dominican Republic native.
“I feel like I have progressed,” Colon said. “My body is ready to go.”
Attempting to put a blemish on Colon’s Opening Day stats of 3-1 with a 2.67 ERA will be righty Ryan Drese, who emerged as the clear-cut young ace of an improving Rangers staff in 2004. He will be celebrating his 29th birthday when he takes the mound in Anaheim tonight.
With a record of 14-10 and an ERA of 4.20 last year, Drese knows that AL Manager of the Year Buck Showalter is counting on him to lead the Texas staff through 2005 and beyond. For him, however, the pressure of an Opening Day start is not too much to derail a right arm that surprised most of baseball in 2004.
“A starting pitcher can only work one game in a five-day period,” Drese said. “My day happens to be the first day this year and that’s cool. But it’s no more important than the second day, the third day, the fourth day or the fifth day.
“I just want the ball. It doesn’t matter when.”
Backing up Drese is a Texas lineup full of promise, potential and power. The first four hitters in Showalter’s projected starting nine form what many have called the best young infield in baseball.
Leading off is second baseman Alfonso Soriano, the former New York Yankee who belted 28 home runs and swiped 18 bases in ’04. 2003 All-Star game hero Blalock follows, providing the latter half of the most powerful one-two punch in the major leagues.
Next is Young, coming off back-to-back 200-hit campaigns and a season in which he flirted with the league lead in hits (216) and batting average (.313) all season long. The clean-up man is Teixeira, a switch-hitting first baseman who led the club with 38 homers, 112 RBIs and a .560 slugging percentage; ironically, Tex was the only Rangers infielder not to receive an invite to the All-Star game in Houston last year.
A slew of contact-hitting outfielders will follow, beginning with off-season acquisition Richard Hidalgo. Veteran David Dellucci will hit sixth for Showalter as the designated hitter, with the affable Kevin Mench batting sixth in left field.
Catcher Barajas will hit eighth tonight, setting up switch-hitting center fielder Gary Matthews, Jr. in the No. 9 hole.
Matthews’ presence in the starting lineup may come as a surprise to some, who grew to expect Laynce Nix’s gritty style of play in center last year. Nix was demoted to Triple-A Oklahoma Sunday afternoon, though the decision was not an easy one for the Rangers’ think tank.
“We just felt like it was best for Laynce at this point to go down and get some consistent at-bats,” Showalter said. “We didn’t feel like it was in his best interest to platoon him up here right now. We think he’s a big part of our future.”
“[Final cuts are] all tough,” Showalter continued. “You’re dealing with people’s lives, and I think, unfortunately, people look at it as some finality, but what’s best for our organization at the start of the year changes as the season goes on.”
In addition to Nix, bullpen fixture Carlos Almanzar will not begin the season on the Rangers’ 25-man roster; the hard-throwing right-hander is dealing with the deaths of two immediate family members within the last few days. He has been given clearance from Showalter to spend as much time in the Dominican Republic, where funeral services have been prepared, as is necessary before returning to action.
“If there are any indications as to how he’s going to be about pitching,” the skipper said, “it’s pretty secondary right now.”
Without Almanzar, Texas can still boast one of the toughest and most consistent bullpens in all of baseball. All-Star Francisco Cordero, for example, finished second in the league to the Yankees’ Mariano Rivera with 49 saves in 2004.
In addition, southpaws Ron Mahay and Brian Shouse are back to provide mid- to late-inning relief when power-hitting left-handers step into the box with the game on the line.
Overall, little change has been made to the ball club that gave both the Angels and Oakland Athletics a run for their money in ’04; with a year of playoff-atmosphere experience now under the belt of many rising stars, tonight’s match-up against Colon — though it may appear lopsided on paper — should be the start of a 162-game battle lasting well into September.
