Of sports prophesies over the years – and there have been many — some have not, to borrow a popular turn of phrase making the rounds, aged well.
Discovered last week in a found program from the 1941 U.S. Open at Colonial Country Club, a first-class relic directly associated with saints Leonard and Hogan, was this dictum, the lead of the profile on Bobby Jones, four-time winner of the national open.
“Robert Tyre Jones Jr. of Atlanta, Ga., has had no equal on the links and probably never will.”
History has thrown shade on that reading of the tarot cards, which had missed the Bethlehemian event in Ohio only the year before and the coming big, bright North Star over Earl’s house in 1975.
Then there was this pearl, uttered by the legend himself, in the year 1979.
“I’ve always been a fastball pitcher, and I’m going out a fastball pitcher. Frankly, I don’t think I’d be able to adjust. I wouldn’t want to take the time to develop new pitches or a new style of pitching. I know some guys, like Tom Seaver, want to hang around six years or more.
“I don’t.”
Fourteen years later, Nolan Ryan retired. The evolution of baseball salaries probably helping convince him to hang around six more years and then some. Banks, baseball teams and an Eddie Chiles oil well here or there don’t just grow on trees.
Things change.
In our current times, the Rangers have made us wanna-be futurists appear one and the same of those who forecast the flying bicycle.
A prognosticator makes predictions based on current trends. There was nothing trendy about the Rangers when this season started. Questions didn’t appear to have answers and codes to unlock clues we thought were nowhere to be found, starting with the rotation and the bullpen, which turns over pieces every year like high school senior classes.
The prediction seemed a simple one: The bullpen will burn down Globe Life Park in its final season.
And, sure enough, in April the bullpen resembled the Chinese fire drill.
But as the season turned in the right direction and the Rangers slowly solidified the rotation, the bullpen, with all its moving minor-league parts, has settled.
Jose Leclerc has found a place out there after a very unsuccessful start to the season as the closer. He has looked more like one of the top relievers in the league, as he was a year ago. Opponents hit a feeble .095 off him in May and .152 in June after he was moved to setup role and middle reliever roles.
Chris Martin has posted a 1.89 ERA in June and given up no walks.
And what can you say about the job Jesse Chavez did before his recent transition into the rotation? He didn’t allow a run in May and has allowed only two earned runs in relief in June. All after allowing 10 in a disastrous April.
Shawn Kelley, an off-season free-agent acquisition, has somewhat stabilized the closer’s hole.
In June, the bullpen has allowed one run or less in 17 of 26 games. True, they weren’t doing it against the Bronx Bombers, but rather the likes of Kansas City, Baltimore, the White Sox, Cincinnati and Detroit, but big-league hitters are big-league hitters.
Who knows what the situation would be without those three veterans?
The key to continuing this run will be an on-time train schedule to Triple-A Nashville. They’ll be moving back and forth. Seven relievers have made their major-league debuts this season.
The most recent have names from the scripts of the General Hospital soap franchise.
Locke St. John and Peter Fairbanks were both promoted from the farm and made their major-league debuts in June.
St. John, 26, a one-time starter who made the move to relief made his major-league debuts this week last week, didn’t advance to Double A until last season. Fairbanks, 25, started the season – this season – at high Class A.
Fairbanks, 25, was drafted by the Rangers in the ninth round out of Missouri in 2015, but his professional career has been marred by two Tommy John surgeries.
With those histories, it’s no wonder that neither was expected to be in Arlington in 2019.
But it takes long shots with something to prove to prove the prognosticators with the expectations all wrong.
The Rangers and their bullpen keep doing it.
