Recent Play Details

Play on CHICAGO WHITE SOX -1.5 runs (run-line play on the White Sox is good with juice at -120 or better)
3% confidence rating
List Pitchers: Cease and Otto
HP Umpire: Will Little is pitcher-friendly. His K-zone and the nasty stuff that Cease possesses make this an uber-difficult tasks for the Rangers lineup and starter Otto to keep up with, compete in and/or win.
Weather: The heat index that feels like 100-plus degrees in Arlington at Globe Life makestask any openings outside the stadium closed. 

Cease took his turn on Monday and started the month with one of his most effecient outings of the season. Cease threw six innings of one-run ball on four hits and one walk with seven strikeouts against the A's.

Cease faced little resistance outside of a second-inning solo shot and comes into this Globe Life start with an 11-4 mark -- a 2.01 ERA - and a butt load of confidence to work with across the final two months of reg-season games.

The Rangers spent a rich man's fortune this offseason. The collective results of the winter's haul has been disappointing in the Dallas Fortworth area. The rest of the world hardly knows that this Texas Rangers front office spent half a billion dollars on free agent signings and extending contracts.

If I received one phone call, text, or email asking how I forecast the Rangers for the season, I received 50 of each. My answer was always the same, and it still is. That answer was as follows;

If the Angels fall short of expectations for the fifth straight season, which they will, then Texas has a chance to finish third in the division. Yes, if Trout doesn't play 130 games, then Ohtani is left on an island, and the Rangers could finish ahead of the Halos.

Currently, this Rangers team doesn't understand how to win, and that is their biggest liability.

Consider that they have played in 27 one-run games and an overall season record of 47-58. Of the 27 one-run games, if they had won them all, yes, 27 wins, their record would be 69-36 heading into tonight's game.

Those who know baseball, at the MLB level, understand you can't win all of your one-run games.

Right?

But do they understand you can lose all of your one-run games, Texas being that team? That, too is ridiculous to imagine. However ... how does a team fail as badly as the Rangers have in one-run games after an offseason of endless spending?

The actual wins and losses for Texas this season in their one-run events are 5-22. While understanding a team can't possibly win or lose all of their one-run games in a season, I would be a "hell no" if you told me in March that this Rangers team would lose 22 of 27 one-run games.

If you compared Otto to any U.S landscape it would be Vermont, which has a seemingly endless and vast landscape of green rolling hills.

Otto has taken 15 turns in the rotation this season. He has a surface record of 4-7, an ERA of 5.50, and a WHIP of 1.46. He has had a handful of 15-minute moments this season, but the bottom line is that when the Rangers sent him to the mound last season six times, for six starts, he ended the season 0-3 with a 9.26 ERA and 1.71 Whip. He surrendered 32 hits and 24 runs in 23.1 innings of work.

Otto's percentiles this 2022 campaign that compares his work with the rest of the league find him in the 29th, 31st, 4th, 37th, 11th, 14th, 19th, and 6th, in Average EV, Hard Hit percentage, xERA, xBA, xSLG, Barrel%, K%, and BB% respectively.

If you visit MLB.com or one of the sabermetric sites on the web, you can compare Otto to Cease and his body of work. The differential between the two is staggering.

CHICAGO WHITE SOX -1.5 RUNS