We all have expectations for things that surround us. We expect our kids to grow up to be well-adjusted individuals. We expect our jobs to pay us a salary commensurate to our experience and work output. Though not of equal importance, but we also have expectations of our favorite sports teams: I expect the Dallas Cowboys to make more noise in this years' playoffs than Jerry Jones does when tooting his own horn. Expectations are everywhere whether we like them or not. And my expectations for the Texas Rangers are no exception.
After the 2009 MLB season, my expectations for the Texas Rangers' 2010 season was quite simple: playoffs or bust. I felt this team was primed for its first postseason run in a decade and had all the pieces to just get in. Nothing more. A playoff berth would suffice. Well, they got in. Then they won their first postseason series. On the road. In the ALDS. Then they beat their arch playoff nemesis Yankees in the ALCS. They finally beat the Yankees. In the playoffs. And then they got the World Series where they succumbed to the buzz-saw that was the San Francisco Giants.
Not too shabby. They exceeded my expectations. One could say that the Rangers blew my expectations out of the water. And for many months afterwards, I still could not believe that my favorite baseball team, the Texas Rangers, made it to the World Series. The Texas Rangers. The World Series. In the same sentence. That did not sink until maybe right around the 2011 World Series. So getting to the World Series that season was the proverbial icing on the cake.
I upped the ante for the 2011 season as my expectations were that the Rangers were to not only get to the playoffs but get to the World Series and win it all. My expectations were one strike from getting met. Twice. And there in lies the current psyche of most Rangers fans these days. The Rangers were so close to winning that we as fans could not wait until the start of the next season to prove that previous outcome was not a fluke. That the team should be given a free pass into the World Series because of the catastrophic way the title was lost to us.
So as the 2012 season started, I purposely kept from making any mental, or even verbal, expectations so as to not jinx myself in any way. Of course, that did not help as the team wallowed through a second-half slump that in many ways mirrored the slump slugger Josh Hamilton endured at the plate. Coincidence? Are the two slumps directly related? Eh, maybe, but I am not touching that one, plus it is a moot point. It is a team game, not a tennis match. Either way, the team looked tired the last six to eight weeks of the season and barely showed enough *umph* to eek out a wildcard game with the Baltimore Orioles.
The team right now is banking again on the thought of "just getting in." Nothing more. Someone in the media says that they are playing "meaningful baseball" right now, which is great and all, but we all know they should be fighting the Oakland A's for AL West supremacy, instead of just fighting for their playoff lives. But the way their September play has shown, "just getting in" may not be good enough.
Rangers fans wear their frustrations on their sleeves, including yours truly. Baseball is a tough sport and Texas Rangers fans have gotten spoiled with the team that Jon Daniels has put on the field the past few years. And I think, right fully so. The present make-up of the team even with the absence of Nelson Cruz, is set up to make a run into the playoffs and beyond, but because of the "way baseball go" they might not even get in. I expect them to be in the playoffs, at the very least, and with all platitudes aside, this fan base knows what this team is capable of and anything less will be unacceptable.
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| Baseball town? Sure, why not. Though football will always be king here. |
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