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Tuesday, September 30, 1997

Rangers fizzle instead of repeating

By DENNE H. FREEMAN AP Sports Writer

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) - The Texas Rangers won their first game and their last game. In between, they didn't resemble the team that won the AL West last year.

Texas won the west by four and one-half games in 1996. They finished 13 games behind Seattle this year. Anaheim also finished ahead of Texas.

Texas was 90-72 a year ago and 77-85 this year.

"It was a tough season," Oates said. "We just ran out of firepower. There was no consistency."

Texas dropped from 221 homers to 187 and runs allowed from 799 to 823.

The Rangers still drew a club record 2.9 million fans despite their sorry defense of the title.

"The fans followed through this year with what we started but we didn't," Oates said Monday. "We kind of let them down."

Not only did the Rangers fail to keep up with the Seattle Mariners, their top challenger for the crown last year, they let the Anaheim Angels take second place in the division.

"A lot of things didn't go according to plans this season," said Texas outfielder Rusty Greer, one of the few bright spots. "The fans supported us through thick and thin but we flat didn't produce."

Last year, the Rangers led the majors in fielding percentage. This year they became the worst fielding team in Oates' managerial history.

They committed 121 errors to 87 errors last year.

Last year the Rangers used only eight starting pitchers and led the majors in rotation wins with 75.

This year's rotation used 12 different starting pitchers and they couldn't win 50 games.

The Rangers had three starters from last year fall to the injury bug, Mickey Tettleton, who eventually retired, Will Clark and Mark McLemore. Juan Gonzalez missed the first month of the season because of injury.

Two others were huge disappointments, Benji Gil at shortstop and Damon Buford in center field. Both were eventually benched.

Ken Hill, Roger Pavlik, and John Burkett all spent time on the disabled list. Hill eventually was traded.

The Rangers had a $51 million payroll this year but didn't produce although an average of 36,815 fans per game trooped to The Ballpark at Arlington.

"Our job is to win and anything short of that is not acceptable," Oates said. "It was not a whole lot of fun.,"

Next year the Rangers have to find two starting pitchers, a shortstop, and be worried whether second baseman Mark McLemore and Clark, both scheduled for off-season surgery, will be ready to play.

"We need to add some strong people to our starting pitching rotation," Oates said. "Our goal is to have five consistent starters ready to go. Those five are not here so it's up to (general manager) Doug Melvin to come up. with something.

"We definitely have to improve our pitching and our defense. "

Texas hopes Rick Helling, who was picked up from Florida, Darren Oliver and maybe Bobby Witt, who is a free agent, can make the pitching roster next year.

"We have to sign Witt first," Oates said. "We'll see how it goes."

Oates said the Rangers' farm team won't help much.

"I can't see any of the kinds making it except for maybe Fernando Tatis at third base," Oates said. "He hit in the low .220s and still has a long way to go."

Tatis became the starter after Dean Palmer was traded to Kansas City for outfielder Tom Goodwin.

"We're going to have a busy off-season," Oates said. "That's what happens when you don't meet expectations."Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
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