Rangers Notes: Team Weighs Free-Agent Options

Third baseman Adrian Beltre (left) and catcher Victor Martinez could both be attractive free-agent options for the Rangers this offseason.

Baseball’s free-agent shopping season officially began on Sunday, and the Rangers may look to add upgrades at several positions, in addition to trying to re-sign ace left-hander Cliff Lee.

The area which is in need of the most improvement seems to be catcher, where youngsters Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Taylor Teagarden and Max Ramirez were either injured or failed to produce at the big-league level this year, giving way to veterans Matt Treanor and Bengie Molina before the season’s halfway point. The team would clearly like to have a consistent No. 1 catcher for an entire season, and the free-agent market provides options in the form of John Buck, Victor Martinez, A.J. Pierzynski and Yorvit Torrealba, to name a few.

General manager Jon Daniels tried to add a right-handed-hitting first baseman before this year’s trade deadline but could only muster Jorge Cantu, who batted .235 with just two runs batted in and 19 strikeouts in 30 regular-season games with Texas. While Mitch Moreland performed well after his mid-season call-up (nine home runs and 25 RBIs, including a team-high .462 batting average in the World Series), the Rangers are still seeking a right-handed bat to complement him at first. Choices among this year’s group of free agents include Paul Konerko, Troy Glaus, Derrek Lee and Ty Wigginton.

Across the infield, Michael Young is closer to a defensive liability than an asset at third base, and a move to designated hitter may not be too far off. Among free-agent third basemen this offseason, the bar is set high with Adrian Beltre – who hit .321 with 28 home runs and 102 RBIs for the Red Sox this year – but then falls off drastically with the likes of Pedro Feliz, Akinori Iwamura and Nick Punto.

Whether or not Cliff Lee decides to re-sign with Texas, the team will likely try to add depth to its starting pitching rotation, where the only guaranteed spots for next season appear to belong to left-hander C.J. Wilson and right-hander Colby Lewis. Topping this year’s list of free-agent starters are right-handers Jon Garland, Brandon Webb and Chris Young and left-handers Erik Bedard, Jorge De La Rosa and Jeff Francis.

In other news, the Rangers announced Friday that they had outrighted three players off of the 40-man roster – infielder Esteban German and right-handers Doug Mathis and Brandon McCarthy – making them all free agents. The moves brought the number of players currently on the team’s 40-man roster to 31, not including three right-handed pitchers still on the 60-day disabled list: Omar Beltre, Eric Hurley and Guillermo Moscoso.

Rangers Notes: Starters Shine in Series Win over L.A.

Tommy Hunter pitched into the seventh inning Sunday to beat the L.A. Angels and improve his season record to 8-0.

The Rangers won three of four games against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim to push their American League West division lead to seven games, thanks in large part to solid efforts from the starting rotation. In the weekend series, left-handers Cliff Lee and C.J. Wilson and right-handers Scott Feldman and Tommy Hunter combined to throw 28 innings with eight strikeouts against just two walks.

With his win Tuesday over the Tigers in Detroit, Hunter became the first starter in team history to begin a season with a 7-0 record. On Sunday, he improved his record to 8-0 with a victory over the Angels at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.

Catcher Matt Treanor was placed on the 15-day disabled list after suffering a sprained right knee in Friday’s win over Los Angeles. Taylor Teagarden was recalled from Double-A Frisco to replace Treanor on the active roster, though Bengie Molina is expected to get most of the playing time at backstop in the coming weeks.

Second baseman Ian Kinsler saw his 16-game hitting streak stopped Saturday by Angels right-hander Ervin Santana, though he came back with two hits and a walk Sunday to increase his July on-base percentage to .402. Kinsler is 27-for-83 at the plate this month (.325) with three home runs and 13 runs batted in.

With one week to go until baseball’s non-waiver trade deadline, the Rangers would still like to add a right-handed-hitting backup first baseman. After initially being linked to the Cubs’ Xavier Nady, Texas is now showing more interest in Florida’s Jorge Cantu and Baltimore’s Ty Wigginton.

Following manager Ron Washington’s testimony Thursday in a Fort Worth bankruptcy court, Judge Michael Lynn decided to keep Aug.4 as the team’s auction date. Lenders who hold some $525 million debt on Hicks Sports Group wanted the auction date postponed in order to allow more potential buyers to gather funds and enter the bidding process.

Rangers Notes: Molina Slams His Way to Cycle

Catcher Bengie Molina (right) is greeted by Vladimir Guerrero after scoring on his fifth-inning grand slam Friday against the Red Sox in Boston.

Right-hander Tommy Hunter improved his season record to 6-0 with a win Thursday against the Red Sox, allowing two runs on five hits in 6 and 2/3 innings. Hunter benefitted from a six-run first inning by the Rangers, capped off by Bengie Molina’s first home run and RBIs in a Texas uniform.

Molina followed with an historic 4-for-4 performance Friday in which he became the fifth player in team history to hit for the cycle, recording a single, double and tiebreaking grand-slam home run before he legged out a triple in the eighth inning. Molina became just the eighth player since 1900 (and first catcher) to hit for the cycle with the home run being a grand slam.

Right-handed reliever Darren O’Day has not allowed a run in 19 consecutive appearances out of the bullpen, dating back to the Rangers’ series against the White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field in early June. O’Day has thrown 17 and 1/3 scoreless innings in that span, striking out 12 batters against only three walks.

Since being recalled from Triple-A Oklahoma City, first baseman Chris Davis is 4-for-22 with three walks and three strikeouts. Davis, who was sent down in late April after hitting .188 with an on-base percentage of .264 and 17 strikeouts, re-joined the major-league roster when Justin Smoak was traded to Seattle in the Cliff Lee deal.

Meanwhile, the Rangers continue to look for a right-handed-hitting backup first baseman that could also be used as a pinch-hitter, a role currently occupied by Joaquin Arias. Texas has been mentioned as a possible suitor for Baltimore’s Ty Wigginton or the Cubs’ Xavier Nady, and the team remains interested in trading for Boston infielder Mike Lowell, who has been on the disabled list since late June with a strained right hip.

More than six months after Tom Hicks reached an agreement to sell the club to a group led by Chuck Greenberg and Nolan Ryan, no deal has been completed because the lenders who hold $525 million in debt on Hicks Sports Group have not approved it. Last week a federal bankruptcy judge moved the date of the team’s auction hearing to Aug. 4, and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has expressed interest in becoming part of a group to buy the Rangers.