The Texas Rangers are blessed with three talented young pitchers that are starting the season on fire. Matt Harrison, Derek Holland and Alexi Ogando are each 2-0 with a combined 1.15 ERA. If you could add one of them to your rotation who would it be?
Ogando is quickly establishing himself as a favorite as he transitions from reliever to starter. The Rangers had great success with CJ Wilson as he made the same change the year before so Ogando has a mentor on the same staff. He doesn't have a great body of work to reference as the 41 innings he pitched in 2010 surpassed any season he had in the minors. The righthander has shown to be a good strikeout pitcher with fairly good control. The big question mark is how durable he can be over the season because he has thrown so few innings in his pro career.
Harrison was deemed a dark horse a couple seasons ago to have the best future of the young arms in the organization. He has shown flashes of brilliance each of the previous seasons but had been unable to sustain it over a season. His rookie season was good start at 9-3 but he fell off to 4-5 and 3-2 the following two seasons with most of 2010 spent in relief. This lefthander isn't overpowering and has thrown almost as many walks as strikeouts in each of the previous three seasons.
Holland is the most heralded of the three and the fire-balling lefty has shown he can dominate in the minors. He endured a baptism by fire rookie season in 2009 going 8-13 and had his 2010 season sidetracked with a rotator cuff injury. When healthy Holland rehabbed much of the second half of the season at Triple A and honed his craft going 6-2 with a 1.89 ERA with 51 strikeouts over 62 innings.
Given the choice of these three I would choose Holland. He has a better strikeout ability than Harrison and will likely be more durable than Ogando as the season progresses. It will be interesting to see how long each of them can maintain the hot start.
On another quick topic I think the injury to Ranger Josh Hamilton was unnecessary and stupid. Who tries to score on a pop up in the infield? The GM may have lauded the third base coach for being aggressive but how successful can that play be? Hamilton said he was just following orders but he was setting himself up for injury by going into a situation he was not comfortable with. Hamilton has to know his limitations but he may depend on the guidance of others due to his past off the field issues. It was a high risk situation that has put one of the best players of the game out for several weeks. The Rangers are saying six to eight weeks but it is the medical opinion of Stephania Bell of ESPN that the rehab may take several more weeks. We shall see.
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