Rangers might regret not starting Lee in Game 4
ARLINGTON, Texas -- The rare and remarkable streaks continue.
Texas is the only team in baseball never to have won a playoff series.
The Rangers have never even won a home playoff game.
And ace Cliff Lee has never started on short rest.
Bing, bam, boom, Tampa Bay 5, Rangers 2 in Game 4 of this AL Division Series, and now the Rangers have blown two chances to close out the Rays at home and this series swings back to Florida for Game 5 on Tuesday night.
But really, should they be re-straightening the bunting in Tropicana Field?
What if that last streak had ended with Game 4 here Sunday?
What if the Rangers, who had a chance to go for the kill, elected to actually break the emergency glass and ask Lee to take the ball on short rest?
Following Sunday's game, slumping slugger Josh Hamilton reported that he planned to "go home, take my girls fishing this afternoon, then get on a plane [Monday], maybe take some swings in the cage, maybe not, take my wife to dinner and then go play."
But had Texas handed the ball to Lee for Sunday's high-noon showdown, maybe another roaring sellout crowd of 49,218 would have witnessed the Rangers doing something they've never done in their 39-year history: Clinch a playoff series.
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And then Hamilton could have taken his girls fishing Sunday afternoon and the rest of the week, up until the Rangers hosted Game 1 of the AL Championship Series on Friday evening.
Instead, they'll be winging their way to Tampa on Monday for, as team leader Michael Young says, "one game for all the marbles."
Maybe this all still works out just fine for the Rangers. Maybe Lee gets the ball in Game 5 and then out-duels Rays ace David Price for a second time this series.
But the way this series has turned, as backup Rays outfielder Rocco Baldelli -- who is not on the active roster in this Division Series -- noted on his way out the clubhouse door here Sunday, "I'd rather be in our shoes."
Suddenly, Texas is the team that isn't hitting (.241 overall in this series, and just .212 in the two games in Arlington).
Suddenly, Texas is the team that isn't pitching. Just five outs from clinching in Game 3, reliever Darren Oliver inexplicably followed two good curveballs to fastball hitter Carlos Pena with a fastball on a 1-and-2 count. Oliver missed his spot, not getting it inside enough, and Pena jacked an RBI single to even the score at 2-2. Three batters later, closer Neftali Feliz, after backing John Jaso into an 0-and-2 hole and establishing that Jaso was scuffling against his 96-98 mph fastball, threw an 82 mph slider that Jaso promptly chopped up the middle for another RBI single to put the Rays ahead 3-2.
Tampa Bay hasn't trailed since.
Sunday, right-hander Tommy Hunter, 24, served up three runs in the first four innings. Within that, he left a fastball over the plate that Pena drilled for a triple (is it any wonder that Pena's swing suddenly is getting well?) and he left another fastball up that Evan Longoria tomahawked for a leadoff double in what would be a two-run fourth.
"Other than that, they hit my pitches," Hunter said.
Suddenly, Texas is the team that is shaky defensively. One out, man on third in the second Sunday, Matt Joyce launched a pop-up to shallow right field that second baseman Ian Kinsler took while backpedaling. Right fielder Nelson Cruz should have called him off and taken it, because he had momentum toward home plate and Pena, the runner on third, would have had to stay put.
Instead, Kinsler -- whose degree of difficulty on the play was greater than Cruz's because he was going in reverse -- dropped it. Pena scored. Nothing like a 1-0 deficit early to subdue an already-on-edge home crowd.
"I drifted a little too much, and the ball kept drifting on me," Kinsler said.
Pretty much a succinct description of where the Rangers are right now.
Oh, they seemed loose and relaxed in their clubhouse after the game. Young, Kinsler and Jeff Francoeur sat right in a row at their lockers checking cell phones, texting, whatever.
Young, a standup guy and real pro, was smiling as he stood up to speak with reporters.
"We weren't counting our chickens in the first place," he said. "We're not going to second-guess our effort. We played hard."
Though in Texas, I'm pretty sure they do count their chickens -- just before barbecuing them.
The Rangers, now 0-6 in playoff games at the Ballpark in Arlington, aren't barbecuing anybody.
Manager Ron Washington figured that if Hunter could pitch into the seventh inning, "then everything falls into place."
Instead, he was taking the ball from Hunter at the end of the fourth inning and handing it to reliever Derek Holland.
Was that Texas' last best chance to extinguish Tampa Bay in this series packed in the overhead of the Rays' charter flight home Sunday?
Would any of this have been different had Lee started Game 4?
Washington spoke of Lee just before Game 4 started, saying that the lefty ace acquired by the Rangers from Seattle mid-summer was involved in the discussions "but he has never done it before. As I said, we checked the history on that, and CC Sabathia is the only guy that has been consistent at it.
"There is only one of him."
Maybe part of that is because, like the Phillies in the World Series last year, nobody ever asks Lee to lift a little heavier load than he's accustomed to lifting.
Two questions: If he's expecting money close to Sabathia on the free-agent market this winter, isn't it about time somebody did? And shouldn't Lee appear a little less reticent about the idea?
He's been pretty quiet about the idea now in each of the past two Octobers.
Someone asked him about a "warrior" mentality after Sunday's game, and Lee said, "I'm competitive. I hate to lose. I like to compete. And if that goes under 'warrior', I guess I'm that. But I am just extremely competitive. That's how I would phrase it."
Meantime, someone asked Washington the proverbial "Is this why you got him, for this type of game" question, looking ahead to Game 5.
Yes, Washington said, for exactly this situation.
"I certainly feel great about what's about to happen when we get to Tampa," Washington said. "And we couldn't have a better guy on the mound."
Maybe this all works out exactly the way the Rangers think -- hope? -- it will.
But while swinging and missing on two opportunities to clinch the easier way, at home, this much is true, too:
Game 4 was also why the Rangers acquired him. For that type of game.
