Up the Down Staircase : The Texas Rangers Have Had Some Real Highs and Lows, but Remain in the AL West Race

ARLINGTON, Tex. —  When he was with the Angels, Brian Downing viewed his current team, the Texas Rangers, with a bit of disdain.

“One of the big things about playing against these guys the last several years, we always felt that somehow they’d find a way to lose,” he said. “They weren’t advancing baserunners. They’d have defensive lapses. Things like that.”

The Rangers have found so many ways to lose that, in 19 years of existence, they have failed to appear in postseason play--a distinction they share with only one other major league franchise, the Seattle Mariners.

Dallas Times Herald columnist Phil Rogers may have best summed up the attitude of Ranger fans when he titled his book chronicling the club’s history, “The Impossible Takes a Little Longer.”

It is true that Ranger history includes two of Nolan Ryan’s seven no-hitters.

It is also true that Ranger history includes Mario Mendoza and Ned Yost.

This season, however, the Rangers are sending out signals that the impossible may arrive sooner than later.

The Rangers have hung at or near the top of the American League West for much of the past six weeks, although they have looked a little inconsistent in doing it.

They have, in order, put together a club-record 14-game winning streak, an eight-game losing streak and a seven-game winning streak. Their starting pitching, expected to be a strong point, has been miserable. But their hitting has been good enough to keep them in the thick of the American League West race at a time when they have usually been all but out of it.

“Coming out of spring training, if you would have thought our starting pitching would be in the shambles it’s in now, there’s no way you would have said we’d be in the middle of a pennant race,” Ryan said. “And that’s where we are.”

Leading the Rangers’ attack are the “Four Amigos”--second baseman Julio Franco, first baseman Rafael Palmeiro, right fielder Ruben Sierra and center fielder Juan Gonzalez--all of whom are hitting better than .300 with seven or more home runs.

“We may not be a marquee-type club but we’ve got talent,” said Tom House, the Rangers’ pitching coach. “Some of it is inexperienced, but it is legitimate talent.”

Sierra and Gonzalez are, in fact, budding superstars.

In 1989, Sierra, 25, hit .306 with 29 home runs and a league-leading 119 runs batted in, but his production fell off last season amid criticism that he had become complacent, especially in the field. So far this season, however, he has played up to ’89 standards.

The 21-year-old Gonzalez was voted the most valuable player in the triple-A American Association last year, when he hit .289 in 25 games with the Rangers after being called up at the end of the season.

Sierra may be the Rangers’ MVP candidate, but Gonzalez is the club’s cover boy, his signing and subsequent development in the farm system a shining example of how the Rangers have tried to build their team in recent years.

Since it first came together seven years ago, the Rangers’ management triumvirate--General Manager Tom Grieve, Assistant General Manager Sandy Johnson and Manager Bobby Valentine--has emphasized scouting and player development, and generally declined to pursue high-dollar free agents.

That philosophy was reinforced two years ago when a group of Dallas-Ft. Worth investors, headed by George W. Bush and Edward (Rusty) Rose, bought controlling interest in the team from Eddie Chiles, who owned the Rangers since 1980.

Bush, eldest son of President Bush, has made it plain that he and his fellow investors are focused on the bottom line.

“Their goal, which I wholeheartedly endorse, is to fund a baseball team with the idea that you put a championship team on the field and break even or make a profit,” Grieve said. “They’re not willing to toss money around just for the sake of winning, if it means you can’t make a profit.

“There are owners--I don’t want to name them--who are older, whose total thing in life is to have their baseball team win. When you have a billion dollars, you don’t give a damn about $10 million or $12 million. That’s fine for them, but it creates a lot of pressure on the rest of us. It makes our job a little tougher. We just have to work harder and do things a little more intelligently.”

After winning 87 games and finishing second in 1986--”a mirage,” is how Grieve describes that season--the Rangers fell off. They won 83 games for the second season in a row last year, but only after rebounding from a 19-29 start that had left them 14 games behind Oakland two months into the season.

This season got off to a controversial start when, 10 days before the opener, Valentine decided to release left fielder Pete Incaviglia, a team leader who averaged 25 homers and 78 runs batted in over his five seasons with the Rangers.

The move was made ostensibly to delete Incaviglia’s rally-killing strikeouts from the lineup, but it left the strong impression that Valentine wanted to remove Incaviglia’s brash presence from the clubhouse as well.

The decision to waive Incaviglia, who was popular with the media and fans, had talk shows buzzing, and as if to put a Band-Aid over the whole thing, Ranger management put a huge picture of Ryan on the front of Arlington Stadium.

When the Rangers opened the season with four losses in a row, the voices of gloom grew louder. But the winning streaks have, for the most part, muted the criticism.

“They’re a lot different team,” Mariner Manager Jim Lefebvre said of the Rangers. “They’ve taken a lot of strikeouts out of that lineup, and they’re doing a lot of things.”

With a team more likely to put the ball in play, Valentine has been able to call for the hit-and-run and the sacrifice, elements that were missing from the Ranger offense.

Adding the 40-year-old Downing as a designated hitter has also made a difference.

No longer wanted by the Angels, he was invited to spring training by the Rangers less than two weeks before the start of the season. A .450 hitter during the 14-game winning streak, he has slumped in recent weeks. But his quiet brand of leadership by example has made him a force in the clubhouse.

“Downing is steady,” Grieve said. “He’s there for you every day. There’s an intensity on and off the field that never diminishes. You never have to wonder how Brian’s going to be when he comes to the ballpark, and that’s very important.

“The same is true with (Goose) Gossage (who has found a spot in the Ranger bullpen this season). Instead of hanging their heads and moping around when they’re going bad, and subtly dragging the team down, these guys are upbeat, focused, and they’ve been a positive influence in subtle ways that you can’t put a finger on.

“Like with the (14-game winning) streak. The thing I liked best about it was (the players) weren’t so giddy or so high that you’re waiting for the fall. I mean, you’d see emotion. But it was not like we’d just won a World Series.

“Same for bad streaks. You don’t want to get too down. When you have players with the right attitude, you eliminate the risk of that occurring.”

Downing, in turn, has felt comfortable among his new teammates.

“This has been a real unique team for personalities,” he said. “I tell you, this is about the closest team I’ve ever been on. There is so much interaction (among the players)--guys talking baseball, guys hanging around together. I felt a part of this from the first day.”

All the base hits and good vibrations won’t mean much in the long run, however, unless the Rangers get their pitching on track.

Two Ranger starters, Bobby Witt and Scott Chiamparino, are on the disabled list and probably will be out at least until the All-Star break. Witt, who won 17 games for the Rangers last season, has a minor rotator cuff tear, and Chiamparino has a sore elbow.

Another Ranger starter, left-hander Kenny Rogers, has been demoted to the bullpen because of ineffectiveness and hasn’t done much better as a reliever.

Ryan, who suffered a strained shoulder muscle two weeks after throwing his no-hitter May 1, has managed to stay in one piece since coming off the disabled list May 29. At 44, however, his every twinge is a tremor for the Rangers.

Publicly at least, Valentine has been defiant in addressing the Rangers’ pitching situation.

“Just another reason we can’t do anything,” he said sarcastically in discussing the loss of Witt. “Wade Boggs said we can’t do anything here because it’s too hot. . . . Now we have a pitcher hurt. That’s another reason.

“I don’t think any reason I’ve heard so far has any bearing on reality. Reality now is, we’ve got a pretty good team, and we’ll see what happens.”

In a corner of the clubhouse, Downing looks at the Rangers’ chances a little more skeptically.

“Pitching is still the name of the game,” he said. “I can’t get that worked up about (the Rangers’ early success). Now if Nolan, Bobby, Chiamparino, those guys were all fine, yeah, I’d feel pretty good about it.”

Can these Rangers do the impossible?

Holding out the finger on which he has always wanted to wear a World Series ring, Downing said: “The only thing I ever wanted was for it to happen out there (with the Angels). But after the wide swing of emotions I’ve been through--not getting any spring training, getting rescued (by the Rangers)--it sure would be something if it happened here.”