The Team That Forgot How To Lose

They haven't lost a game in more than a week. They led during 14 of the 18 total innings played during the two-game set in Boston. Within the context of the American League, they're first in runs scored (69), first in home runs (22), first in hits (121), first in wOBA and wRC+ (.364 and 125, respectively), and first in fWAR (3.7) on the offensive end, and second in BB/9 (2.08), first in HR/9 (0.58), first in ERA (2.33), first in FIP (2.82), first in xFIP (3.41), and first in fWAR (3.3) on the pitching end. They're making a legitimate push to commence with the burial rites of the last-place Angels before the first of May.

Including the 2011 post-season, the Rangers have won 34 of their last 45 games played dating back to September 11th of last season. Throw out the post-season, and the Rangers have won 24 of their last 28 regular-season games played. We're watching the single most dominant stretch of baseball in franchise history, and I'm not sure it's especially close.

Glancing past the continued "controversy" over who should be playing left/center field when and at what time, the only discernible weaknesses on this team right now are at first base (where Mitch Moreland has yet to establish any sort of offensive momentum) and, arguably, at closer, where Joe Nathan * is making life a bit more interesting than it needs to be. You could also reasonably argue that Yu Darvish has been a weak point, although he's going to get another crack at reversing that perception tonight, and knowing what we know about the massive adjustment process, there never should have been a serious expectation of him pitching like a world-beater in his first few starts, anyway.

[* Last night's hiccup was a function of a bad lead-off walk in a four-run game and defensive misfortune more than it was Nathan pitching poorly, I thought (screaming Jarrod Saltamacchia liner notwithstanding), though that hasn't mitigated the speculation over Nathan's job security after Mike Adams was sighted throwing behind Nathan last night. I can get the interpretation of that as a warning shot at Nathan, but I can also see why Adams hurriedly warming might have been more about wanting to be able to protect Nathan's arm, as he shot past the 20-pitch mark in a hurry, and was still mired in a stressful one-out jam when he miraculously escaped. It may be that Texas is disinclined to push Nathan beyond the 30-35 pitch mark at this relatively early point in the season, and that Adams warming up had far more to do with Nathan's physical limits than a true lack of dugout faith in his abilities.]

I really haven't written much about this team from an analytical perspective since the season got underway (more due to time constraints than anything else), and that's kind of been bugging me, as that's been one of the long-standing hallmarks of this website ... but it's also kind of refreshing, in that a lot of baseball analysis derives from some discussion-sparking weakness, of which this team has virtually none right now. They're going to hit a roadblock eventually, and the Angels will awaken from their deep early-season hibernation eventually, and we'll probably get some form of a divisional race eventually -- but it didn't happen yesterday, and it may not be this day either, because the tables have fully turned, and the same teams that used to hunt the Rangers for practice have now become the hunted.