Vicente Padilla's career as a Texas Ranger appears to be finished.

There was a fleeting -- but highly publicized -- moment after home plate umpire Bob Davidson issued empathic warnings to both the Rangers' and the Athletics' dugouts on Wednesday evening that Vicente Padilla, after insolently mocking Davidson's pointing gestures, turned to his right and flashed a toothy grin in the direction of Derek Holland, who was seated immediately next to his veteran rotationmate.

The elder hurler's antics did not even elicit an acknowledgement from the blank-faced junior hurler, much less a reaction, which pretty much told you all you needed to know about which of the two was the more mature and less easily distracted character.

And less than 48 hours after Padilla infuriated teammates, coaches, executives and fans alike with not only that little exhibition of dugout audacity, but yet another occurrence of teammate endangerment with his first-inning plunking of Oakland's Kurt Suzuki (and, for that matter, a lacking 5.2-inning effort which some team personnel reportedly called a "gutless performance"), a four-year-long relationship between player and ballclub has been severed at a most unexpected time.

As was first reported by D Magazine's Evan Grant early Friday evening, the Rangers, citing presumably deep-seated trust issues and Padilla's unpalatable standing as a "bad teammate," have elected to designate the 31-year-old Nicaraguan right-hander for assignment, effectively ending his career in a Texas uniform -- one spanning a grand total of 103 starts, 599.1 innings and nearly four full seasons, during which Padilla posted a cumulative 4.90 ERA (92 ERA+), 1.48 WHIP and strikeouts-to-walks ratio of 1.82.

While the existence of a 10-day window during which the Rangers can trade, release or outright Padilla to the minors technically gives Texas some modicum of flexibility, the probability of a team opting to burden itself with the $5.75 million guaranteed to Padilla through the remainder of the 2009 regular season -- which includes a $1.75 million ransom to buy out his $12 million team option for 2010 -- is minute to the highest degree, and there is no indication that the Rangers want to retain Padilla in any capacity; ergo, he's destined for his unconditional release.

Beyond his recurrent endangerment of his teammates' well-being and safety with his maddening disposition for head-hunting, a brief triangulation of the assorted media accounts of the situation reveals that Padilla (a) was frequently tardy and/or absent to team meetings, including advanced scouting meetings and team functions, (b) would evacuate to the clubhouse during games to check his e-mail and surf the Internet, and (c) had fostered the perception that he didn't really care about the Rangers as a whole or his teammates.

Judging by the universal "get this guy the hell out of here" tone emitted from the quotes included at the tail end of this piece, the situation had clearly grown untenable to a point where the bad had superseded the good, literally forcing the Rangers to take drastic measures -- and, to be honest, being forced to do so isn't really a bad thing. The Rangers set a strong precedent for dealing with rebellious, agitation-imparting types last summer in not hesitating to cut ties with Aruban right-hander Sidney Ponson when he acted as a disrupting presence in the clubhouse, and it's abundantly clear that the Rangers have a very low tolerance threshold for stupidity. Padilla, by all accounts, had molded himself into a most unwelcome figure both in the locker room and on the mound, and since the "firing of a warning shot" via the June 3rd placement of Padilla on outright waivers evidently didn't improve matters, it seems that it was only a matter of time before he dropped the straw that broke the camel's back.

More interesting are the rotation-shuffling implications and what the switchover from Padilla to Dustin Nippert will mean in terms of run prevention; frankly, this could go either way. Padilla's 2009 strikeout rate (12.4 percent) had plunged precipitiously from where it was one year ago (16.8 percent), and the decline of his swinging strike rate into Jeff Suppan territory (5.9 percent, down significantly from his 8.3 percent swinging strike rate in 2008) reflects his current inability to miss bats, which has been a considerable factor in his largely underwhelming 2009 campaign. Nippert has, of course, been very good in a very limited sample as a starting pitcher this season, and I wouldn't be altogether shocked if he pitched better than Padilla would have the rest of the way, but there's substantial risk in rolling with a pair of rookies and a historically inconsistent, walk-inclined hurler at the back of your starting rotation -- particularly when you're in the midst of a heated pennant race.

It might be a completely far-fetched notion, but veteran right-hander John Smoltz, the Red Sox' most recent roster casuality, might be a reasonable fit for the Rangers in the sense that he's still posting above-average strikeouts-to-walks ratios at the age of 42 and suffering from some really out-of-line bad luck, including a career-high homer rate and BABIP and career-low strand rate; some regression to the mean is to be expected, and Smoltz is clearly a better pitcher than his current 8.32 ERA indicates, so the idea has some merit behind it. The more likely scenario, however, is that the current rotation picture will remain the status quo, with Doug Mathis and Guillermo Moscoso representing emergency depth and Brandon McCarthy representing the great wild card as he races to return to the acitve roster before September 1st.

And as for Padilla? Most likely he'll catch on somewhere as back-line depth for a prorated portion of the league minimum, come out pitching angry and either dominate or crash and burn in spectacular fashion. There's never been much in the way of middle ground for Padilla, and with the indelible stigma of being a troublemaker now even more firmly attached than ever, his prime years fading away quickly and his performance slagging, he's in serious danger of pitching himself out of the majors entirely. I don't actually anticipate that happening (at least not within the next 12 months), but the clock's ticking, and you can't turn back the hands.

One would like to think that Padilla would turn back those hands if he could do so, but never has the "million-dollar arm, 10-cent head" moniker been more apt.

Jon Daniels: "This was a culmination of events over time. We’re putting together an an organization that pulls together, that stands for something. We intend to have a team in every sense of the word. When one guy doesn’t take that to heart, it is apparent. It’s not about throwing at batters in specifics. It was about not being a good teammate.”

Marlon Byrd: "It's about time. When a player disrupts a team, eventually there is going to come a time when management has enough. They have seen enough. We are fighting for a playoff spot. The last thing we need in the clubhouse is a distraction like that. There are 25 guys in this clubhouse who are behind management on this. They showed that they are serious. They did their job. That just serves as assurance that they are doing the right thing here. [...] You have to be a good teammate. You have to help teach younger guys the right things. He wasn’t a positive influence on the young guys. You started questioning his character and about how much he cared."

Eddie Guardado: "I think this thing was a long time in coming. There is something special going on here now and something special they are building for the future. They were just fed up with him not being a team guy. The way he was playing, that's not how I was taught to play the game. And it's not the way anybody in here was taught. I think everybody was in here was tired of it. I think the team took a stand, a good stand. And I think everybody in here was for it."

Michael Young: "I support Jon Daniels' position. We can’t have uncertainty in the clubhouse. We constantly had to ask questions about motives, actions, waivers. We don’t need that kind of stuff to be a distraction. It’s too important a time to get caught up in distractions. Like I said the other night, I didn’t have any problem with getting hit. The [A's] were taking care of their guys. That’s what good teammates do. I didn’t give the pitcher’s actions a second thought.”