Second Place: Not the "First Loser" in This Case, But an Improvement

The Rangers' season ended today with somewhat of a whimper, with the team falling to Seattle, 4-3. I saw the bottom of the eighth inning and intended to watch the top of the ninth to see if the Rangers could pull it off, but I was switching back and forth between that game and the Cowboys game (which didn't turn out well, either), and I just got distracted by the latter; by the time I switched back to the Rangers, the postgame show was already on.

So was this a lost season? It was certainly better than the past few years, and better than people had predicted back in April. Many people had said that 2010 was going to be the Rangers' year (and they're still saying that, of course), while this would continue to be a rebuilding year, but the team made it interesting for a long time (it was fun to go to a meaningful September game last Sunday, for example).

There certainly were a lot of young players who made some noise this season: Elvis Andrus, Neftali Feliz, Julio Borbon. And even though some of the promising young pitchers--Derek Holland and Tommy Hunter--struggled a bit at the end of the season, I see nothing but good things from them as they get some more experience under their belts. On the veteran side, Marlon Byrd had a career year (it was also his free-agent year, and I hope the club can keep him), and Michael Young, after some initial squawking in the off-season, not only accepted his move from shortstop to third base with grace and class but also excelled there; I wonder if the season would have ended differently if he hadn't gone down to injury in the final month.

So as much as I wish that I could still be watching the Rangers this week instead of the Angels (the eventual division winner) or the Red Sox (the wild-card), it was good to see them at least come in second in the division, fighting off a Seattle surge at the end. And if the "2010 will be the Rangers' year' meme is still in effect, well...this year was a heck of a prelude.