"I Ain't Even Mad"

Dan Szymborski has his updated ZiPS projected standings out today (reflecting the current standings and the accumulation of new information over the first 25 percent of the season), and he has the Rangers finishing this season with 95 wins, 13 games ahead of the projected 82-win Angels, and five games ahead of the projected No. 2 seed in the American League, the 90-win Rays.

Baseball Prospectus's post-season odds have the Rangers at 100 percent to reach the post-season, with Texas projected to win 99 games against the second-place Angels' 81 wins.

Something worth noting, at least with regard to some of the recent grousing about the Rangers' struggles ... this team has gone 11-13 over its last 24 games, and yet, in spite of that, has outscored its opponents by a 129-105 margin during that period. The Rangers have outscored their opposition by an average of one run per game over that sub-.500 stretch ... the fact that they've played two games under .500 during that stretch is tied almost entirely to a lack of situational performance and poor "clutch" hitting/pitching.

It sucks, and I don't like it, but it's also a reason why I'm not especially concerned about this team's recent "mediocrity" ... it's hard to do much more than shrug your shoulders and say "yeah, that sucks, but that's baseball, and it'll smooth out" when you're outproducing the competition and not getting the desired results in the standings

If you think that the lack of clutch performance over that stretch has predictive value, that they're going to continue to falter in clutch situations because they've done so over the last 24 games, then that's fine. You can believe whatever you want to believe. But you'd be wrong in believing that.