And The Beat Goes On: June 8th

Did I link this already? Probably! Do I care? Not really!

● Yu Darvish talks about yesterday's disaster, his belief that he's already identified his latest mechanical flaw, and why he thinks he's going to turn the corner.

● The Goose offers his very rational and not at all overreactionary take on the notion of Robbie Ross starting:

On Robbie Ross possibly moving into the starting rotation:

Gosselin: He’s been their best pitcher. He’s been the most consistent pitcher they’ve got, but here’s a guy who didn’t play in triple-A. He jumped up from double-A and they talk about him being a starter, and I think in the future he will be a starting pitcher, but he’s still getting used to big league hitters. I think they’re picking their spots with him, putting him in positions where he can have success and build his confidence. If you put him in the rotation right now, I think that could be a disaster.

I ... well ... what?

● Randy Galloway takes some time out of his busy 'write about why the Rangers need to give Josh Hamilton all of their money and the moon' schedule to sort of take the Hamilton family to task for their remarks in that recent SI cover story, and, in addition to claiming that Katie is misquoting the media when they supposedly say that Josh doesn't care about the money, Galloway says that Josh is changing his story on the big reason why he wants to max out his next deal:

Now, what I'm reading in the SI story does have a slight twist from the past. Josh has always said he cares greatly about the money because he owes it to the players union to drive up the contract, which impacts future contracts for all players.

Josh wanted us to know he's a devout union man. I don't belong to a union, but I back the unions. At least for the guys making 20 bucks an hour in the real world. Not so much for the baseball guys making the millions.

But now, the new Hamilton stance I read in SI centers around the upcoming Josh contract, for the highest amount he can count, being a necessity because he wants to bless the world with his dollars.

There's no problem from here on how someone wants to spend his money, and from a PR standpoint this redirection of the funds to charity is obviously better than saying he's contract-gouging in honor of the players union.

The more the money is "the more we can give away," says Josh in the SI story.

Where do you sign up for this give away?

[...]

Whatever the Hamilton plans for the new money might be, Josh hints in the SI story that it will be "shocking to the world when it happens. It's real big."

It was also once shocking to think the Rangers and Josh wouldn't get together on a new contract. Got to admit, however, even for those of us who have been saying the Rangers should pay Hamilton the big bucks, it's become increasing obvious the more Josh talks these days, the more he is talking his way out of Arlington.

I heard the Hardliners voicing some skepticism yesterday as far as Josh's philanthropic intentions, and, yeah, in this era of rampant cynicism, I kinda get why this could rub some people the wrong way if he's misrepresenting his intentions and making himself sound more charitable than he really intends to be. But ... eh, whatever. He's not clearly fibbing here. We know that he's got some sordid stuff in both his distant past and not-so-distant past, but that doesn't mean he's lying here. It doesn't mean he's actually going to follow through on this stuff he's hinting at, and, if that's the case, we can cross that bridge when we get to it ... but I guess I just don't see this as much of a story.

No word from Randy as far as whether he believes Josh has cost himself $100 million with a lousy little run at the plate. He did, after all, say that he wouldn't go above one year and $20 million for Josh back in February, and then changed his mind less than two months into the season in declaring that the Rangers needed to go above $180 million if that's what it took, so I'm just assuming that from Randy's perspective, his performance in every game results in a swing of about $5-10 million one way or the other as far as his market value is concerned.

● Roy Oswalt got smacked for a grand slam yesterday. Worst signing ever.

● Only a day or two after the Rangers said that Derek Holland was scheduled for no further testing, the Rangers decided to backpedal faster than the Chicago Tribune after the "Dewey Defeats Truman!" incident:

He was flown back to Arlington and will see Dr. Keith Meister today. Meister will provide an orthopedic exam, but Holland will also undergo a battery of tests to get a better read on his general health.

“He’s experiencing some fatigue in his shoulder,” manager Ron Washington said. “Because his body was fatigued, that could have caused it. We’re going to have Dr. Meister do whatever he has to do to give us some certainty as to what we’re dealing with.”

● Ron Washington wasn't up for changing the lineup yesterday:

"I can't shake up that lineup," Washington said. "You've just got to wait on them. I've said all along they are the ones we have to ride, so I'm going to put a saddle on them and ride them. Sometimes they're going to step in some mud, and sometimes they're going to find a dry track and run away. We're going to ride them."

● I had an ESPN quick hit out yesterday where I sung the praises of Yu Darvish and Elvis Andrus. Yeah, great timing there.

● I'll round some of the latest draft stuff up in a Clubhouse post tomorrow that you probably won't read. Isn't that exciting?

● I had an idea to start rolling out a classic .gif of the day when I actually do these posts, so here you go: