Thanks for voting in the catching poll, everyone.

Next up is first base. CAIRO gives Mitch Moreland a .759 OPS this year, while ZiPS gives him a .753. Pretty close. For these purposes, I'm going to split the difference, and ask you how regularly he'll play if that's the case. We can debate whether that's too high or too low when Adam puts up his thingy. Commence cut & paste.

Hey guys. I'm going to do another Rangers forecast this year based on some projection system (probably ZiPS or CAIRO or a mixture, don't know yet). I'll use that for the rate stats, but the best way to forecast playing time is to ask the knowledgeable fans. And LSB is, of course, the most knowledgeable Rangers fanbase.

So, I'm going to put up a series of polls trying to get y'all's ideas on playing time, and those will be the basis of the thingy (and I'll be acknowledging your help). Feel free to argue or OT or whatever in the comments, the poll is all I need. Suggestions and stuff also welcome.

This is not meant as a replacement or opposition to the LSB predictions that I assume we will eventually do. It may help you in gauging PA totals there, though.

Your help is greatly appreciated!

Remember back when people used to always say we would lose Jon Daniels to the Mets front office at first chance?

Instead of Jon Daniels, it's Josh Lewin headed to New York Team B, with the New York Daily News saying he has been hired to their radio booth.

Now there's a reason to listen to Mets games. Enjoy, Mets fans. Congratulations Mets fans, and congratulations, Josh.

Hey guys. I'm going to do another Rangers forecast this year based on some projection system (probably ZiPS or CAIRO or a mixture, don't know yet). I'll use that for the rate stats, but the best way to forecast playing time is to ask the knowledgeable fans. And LSB is, of course, the most knowledgeable Rangers fanbase.

So, I'm going to put up a series of polls trying to get y'all's ideas on playing time, and those will be the basis of the thingy (and I'll be acknowledging your help). Feel free to argue or OT or whatever in the comments, the poll is all I need. Suggestions and stuff also welcome.

This is not meant as a replacement or opposition to the LSB predictions that I assume we will eventually do. It may help you in gauging PA totals there, though.

Your help is greatly appreciated!

First up is catcher. What do you think?

Clay Davenport updated his new forecast system today, with a lengthy explanation I had to read two or three times just to get.

I'll spare you the explanation because you can read it yourself. What's important here is, similar to his previous iterations, the Rangers are the best team in baseball in his 2012 estimate. Texas wins 97 games here, better than anyone else by five games.

I think we'd be fine with that?

He also has nifty links to spreadsheets featuring every batter and pitcher. Yu Darvish comes out looking fantastic with a 3.27 ERA, 183 strikeouts to 57 walks, and an overall elite-level season from a pitcher. Neftali Feliz also checks in with a sub-4 ERA, but fewer strikeouts and innings pitched, for a more mediocre season. It still supports the exact rotation Texas is going to, and projects Texas as the best pitching staff in the American League.

It also has them as the best offense. That's generally a good way to be the best team in baseball. It is somewhat down on Josh Hamilton, Nelson Cruz, and Mike Napoli staying healthy, or Michael Young having another awesome year at the plate, but only Mitch Moreland in the lineup looks particularly below-average, with All-Star caliber years forecasted for Ian Kinsler, Elvis Andrus, and Adrian Beltre. Leonys Martin is given a .742 OPS as a rookie

No real way to know how much confidence to put in to his work, but another bright baseball mind putting himself towards improving baseball forecasting is never a bad thing. It's fun to look through, though, and totally cheap as free.

At Lone Star Ball, Matchst1ck has a post on what’s more valuable: letting a pitcher embrace a ceiling of mediocre starting, or elite relieving?

He compares pitchers — starters and relievers — by value created (and provides a nifty break down of pitch selection), and indicates elite relievers are more rare than even starting pitchers who at least approach average. It’s a fantastic chart worth checking out.

His (I assume tenuous) conclusion, then, is that it’s more valuable to your club to have a pitcher become an elite reliever than it is to force him in to starting only to have mediocrity; something I agree with completely. Especially given how the leverage of a game — depending on how a manager uses him — can lead to an elite reliever putting up even more value than an average starting pitcher would, just by looking at a Wins Above Replacement estimate.

Of course, there are many finer points in the comparison that could still be discussed, and Match opens up the comments for discussion — with prompts — for anyone who wants to debate/theorize/agree. I’d also suggest that, while it is an interesting topic to be sure, it may be something of a moot point for the Rangers, given that each of the starters being considered for the bullpen is probably generally agreed upon to have a ceiling higher than mediocrity as a starter.

Check it out.

Dave Cameron, Mariners Fan, has a short post up on FanGraphs regarding Monday’s Roy Oswalt meeting.

It includes this quote:

No team in baseball needs a starting pitcher less than the Texas Rangers.

He’s right, of course. It’s just such a weird feeling. Read over that quote again. That’s the Texas Rangers. Needing a starting pitcher (and a formerly great one) less than anyone else.

How positively new this experience is!

Not much analysis in his post (though still worth reading), so not much analysis here. Just thought that quote was worth reading.

tl;dr: Jonthefon wins. Go Jonthefon!

Okay, I meant to do this a long time ago, but, baseball broke my heart. Also, I thought it would take forever, but it didn't, so, here we go.

Here are the standings from our attempts to predict the upcoming season last spring, in a FanPost found here. Lots of fun discussion in the comments there to bring up.

Everyone who put up predictions was compared to how things actually went, then scored by RMSE. So, the farther away you were on the win totals, the worse you did. Simple! Also listed in parenthesis are teams the predictor was within two games of nailing.

Also on the list are several projections from the Diamond Mind Blowout of Replacement Level Yankees Weblog. Note that these are RLYW using others' player projections to create standings predictions. These are NOT necessarily the standings predictions of PECOTA, Oliver, etc. They were easy to find and put in. If someone would like to link me to other standings projections I can plug them in easily and show you where they'd place.

Notably absent is ZiPS. I couldn't find ZiPS. I sent a message to Dan Szymborski asking where to look, and if I find it, I'll put it in. Also included are every team predicted to go .500 and every team predicted to repeat its 2010 record.

Those who made playoff predictions but not full record predictions are listed after. Everyone should do record predictions this season! Predictions are fun and not to be taken seriously, just make BS up.

On that note: Do not feel bad about your predictions because human intuition is not good at this crap! That's why we have projection systems, and hopefully you don't take these things seriously. If you do take these things seriously and did horribly, however, you should feel bad. Hopefully this is not you.

Finally. . .

The Standings!

1. CAIRO: 8.706 (SF, LAD, PHI [nailed])
2. PECOTA: 8.942 (KC, NYM, PIT)
3. Diamond Mind Blowout Composite: 9.046 (ATL)
4. Vegas represented by BetUS.com: 9.051 (ATL [nailed], LAD, COL [nailed])
5. Bill James: 9.233 (KC, ATL [nailed], SF, LAD)
6. Jonthefon: 9.434 (SEA, NYM [nailed], LAD, COL); 3/8 playoff teams correct.
7. Oliver: 9.519 (ATL [nailed])
8. Marcel: 9.720 (BOS)
9. Bface: 9.883 (TB, TOR, WSN, PIT, SF [nailed]); 4/8 playoff teams correct and AL champions.
10. Philkid3: 10.085 (KC, NYM, PIT); 3/8 playoff teams and AL champions correct.
11. TBall: 10.236 (TOR, NYM, LAD); 3/8 playoff teams correct.
12. Scoop16: 10.391 (KC, PIT); 3/8 playoff teams correct.
13. .500: 11.223
14. Matchst1ck: 11.403 (TB [nailed], SD [nailed]); 3/8 playoff teams and AL champions correct.
15. Josey Wales: 11.857 (LAD), 2/8 playoff teams correct.
16. 2010: 11.985 (BOS)
17. Iblum: 13.891 (NYM, LAD, SD); 2/8 playoff teams and AL champions correct.

Did Not Pick Records

1. Cmkelly29: 5/8 playoff teams and AL champions correct.
2. Michael bluth: 5/8 playoff teams correct.
3. Boomer1: 4/8 playoff teams and AL champions correct.
4. DJCahill: 4/8 playoff teams correct.
5. Hard8: 4/8 playoff teams correct.
6. Vfn: 4/8 playoff teams correct.
7. Slc ranger: 4/8 playoff teams correct.
8. Adam J. Morris: 3/8 playoff teams and AL Champions correct.
9. The Best Micah: 3/8 playoff teams and AL champions correct.
10. AjaxJones: 3/8 playoff teams correct.
11. Dirk Diggler: 3/8 playoff teams correct.
12. GhostofErikThompson: 3/8 playoff teams correct.
13. JBlmaknee: 3/8 playoff teams correct.
14. JDT217: 3/8 playoff teams correct.
15. LSJ: 3/8 playoff teams correct.
16. MonkeyEpoxy: 3/8 playoff teams correct.
17. RangerMand: 3/8 playoff teams correct.
18. RCCook: 3/8 playoff teams correct.
19. Robert L. Bishop: 2/8 playoff teams and AL champions correct.
20. Mizzou918: 2/8 playoff teams correct.
21. Utlonghorn24: 2/8 playoff teams correct.
22. Bigsteve: 2/6 division winners and AL champions correct.
23. Iorange555: 2/6 divisions correct.
24. MayurP: 1/6 division winners correct.
25. GhettoBear04: 1/4 AL playoff teams and champion correct.

Check My Work!

Beat writer Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a rumor for you if you're awake:

Hearing that Cards made bid approaching $5M on Oswalt weeks ago but not likely happening. Rangers probably win, at $2-3M more w/perks.

That's. . . interesting. . .

$7-8 million for Roy Oswalt is not too much of a reach. Even old and injured, he's a man who's been worth that much on the mound for pretty much his whole career. That's a deal unlikely to screw the Rangers up in any meaningful way financially.

The problem is more how he fits in with the Rangers. In 2010 -- against a weaker league -- Roy Oswalt's Phillies performance would have been the worst starter in the Texas rotation by a good margin. And unlike most of that rotation, Oswalt is on the wrong side of 30, and just suffered a major bulging disk injury this past season. His odds of actually improving Texas pitching seem slim at best.

The idea could be just to add as much depth to the roster as possible, which is not a bad plan; but if it comes at the expense of a Matt Harrison or Neftali Feliz getting to start, it seems questionable. Or, the idea could be to deal a young pitcher. Adam Morris had a tremendous piece on this very idea earlier today at Lone Star Ball, and suggests the Rangers might see Harrison's most recent season as the best he has to offer, and could be trying to sell high. Given a good haul, it would make some sense to strengthen a franchise that has a glut of young pitching talent and put in a good-enough stop gap for the coming season.

The coming season is kind of important, though, and that would probably need to be one heck of a trade to be worth losing a young arm that's already had a Top of the Rotation-caliber performance in his mid-20s while also making the current roster weaker. This just does not seem to make a lick of sense.

Then again, who am I to question the Rangers' front office? They're the ones that have won every AL pennant in the 2010s while maintaining a tremendously deep franchise; if I doubt them, I'm probably the one that's wrong. There might be something here we get and they don't.

Or there might not be.

Or this might just be one beat writer's unsubstantiated rumor.

Continue reading this post »

>gone four a couple of hours

>come back to new ot thread

>over 1,000 posts already

>mfw

I think this might be the first OT thread I've ever started.

For those of you who have never been an SB Nation author, the new story format is a lot like making a new FanPost. I'm not sure it's always been like that. I don't think I've started a FanPost in a long time.

FORCED TOPIC PORTION OF THE OT OP

Okay, here's something. You're designing a video game. You have 13 "points" to distribute in the game over the four following categories (up to five per category).

How would you allocate the resources?

(Pro Tip: Use the paint bucket.)

With a one-sided 23-10 affair in the books, the Washington Redskins just downed the New York Giants, putting the Cowboys back in to sole possession of first place.

Really, that headline could also read "Giants help Cowboys," since it was more the Giants playing below expectations than the Redskins rising above them, with Eli Manning throwing three interceptions and repeated flubs by Hakeem Nicks. Credit should also go to the relentless pressure the Redskins managed, however.

The loss, coupled with the Cowboys win Saturday, guarantees Dallas will survive at least to Week 17 in playoff contention, and also guarantees the Cowboys have the intra-conference tie-breaker. Scenario run-down after the jump.

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Yay! The Cowboys already won!

An early scene lacking much action will be dominated by seeing if the Giants can finish the other half of that coin with losing. A Redskins victory over the G-Men would guarantee the Cowboys at least surviving to Week 17.

The late games don't have a whole lot of high-leverage games, either. They do have Tim Tebow playing an elite team, so we can see how that goes!

If you're watching, click the jump and join the chat with the SB Nation Dallas-Ft. Worth staff!

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The Cowboys' playoff odds plummeted dramatically from where they were yesterday morning; let alone where they were at 10:30 last night. There is no way of getting around that.

What we can do is look at what they still need to get there. A massive blow does not mean the season's over (though if you go ahead and think it is, you might feel a little better).

Obviously, the only way the Cowboys can win the division without winning week 17 in New York is winning their next two games, while the Giants lose theirs. Otherwise, the Giants win the division through the head-to-head tie-breaker. The Cowboys are @Tampa Bay -- which should be winnable but you know how that goes -- and hosting Philadelphia; the Eagles are awful, but they didn't look it in the last match-up. The Giants host the Redskins, then play the Jets in a technical road game; 0-2 would be a shock.

Conversely, 2-0 for the Giants is no guarantee, and the Cowboys should be expected to at least get one win. More than likely, the division will come down to needing a win in New York in the last game of the season. If they go in tied, the Cowboys can win the thing outright, but will need a win. If they go in a game back, they'll still have a chance.

Simply put, if the Cowboys win that game, they almost certainly take the division. Work shown after the jump.

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I do not need to tell you there is a big game tonight. Because of the poor use of time outs a week ago, it's even bigger than it had to be. A win tonight and the Cowboys put the NFC East in a vice.  A loss, and they have some not-so-easy work still to do.

Fortunately, that's the night cap, as it should be. We have a whole set of day games to enjoy without the Cowboys or stress to get in the way. Can the Schaubless Texans march in to Cincinnati and continue to help their playoff positioning? Can Matthew Stafford survive the entire game against the Viking's defensive front? Can the Eagles lose to the Dolphins? Does the loss of Jay Cutler mean another week of Tebow glory? Will the Packers hit 13-0?

These questions and more will be answered shortly, and you can follow along as they are with the staff. Click the jump to find the window, where you can read our thoughts and even share your own as the games happen. It all starts at 11:30!

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So, this week is kind of big for Cowboys fans. At 3:15, Dallas kicks off in Arizona, while the Giants host the Packers. Should both of these not-really-close-on-paper games go the way they should, the Cowboys are looking at a pretty commanding division lead with just four games to go.

But history is littered with annoying Dallas losses to the Cardinals, and both of the teams that need to lose have home field. This is not necessarily something that's gonna be easy.

Fortunately, you're not alone. Click the jump, and stress out over the two games live with the staff. There's some good stuff early, too, like a match-up of talented young QBs against not-so-talented defenses in Tampa, and a huge AFC North showdown in Pittsburgh. We'll be watching those, too, with the chat starting at 11:30.

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There did not seem (at least in circles I discuss the Cowboys in) to be a whole lot of optimism about 2011, particularly for a fan base that always manages a great level of confidence. The idea of mediocrity by and large seemed almost to be wishful thinking, let alone maybe something crazy like. . . contending for the division?

Yet, thanks to the Saints blowing out the Giants 49-24 on Monday Night Football, the Cowboys are not just leading the division, they are all by themselves in first place at the end of Week 12. New York got absolutely no pressure on Drew Brees, and, as you'd expect, that resulted in an aerial bombardment of apocalyptic proportions: 24/38, 363, 4. The Giants' front seven seemed non-existant, and the Saints' 577 total yards was the second most ever amassed against the franchise.

Between this and the Dream Team, the NFC East is really helping Cowboys fans out.

It gets better.

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There is no feeling like coming in to Sunday's games knowing the Cowboys have already won, and being able to focus on the rest of the league. Today we have seven early games and four late, and if you're watching them from your home you should be watching them with us.

Click the jump for the window, where you can read along with our thoughts, or join in to the conversation, starting half an hour before first kick off.

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Football!

You know the drill (hopefully). We as a staff will, like all True Americans®, be sitting on our couches watching football today. While we do so, we will be sharing our thoughts in the window you can find after the jump, and you can join us. Good times had by all!

Chat starts at 11:30. Be there.

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Double-digits! The season is slipping away!

Welcome to week 10, and welcome to the week 10 live blog and chat. Click the jump to find the chat window, and talk about the games with the staff here as they go on. It's become our tradition, make it yours, too.

It all starts half an hour before game time.

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The Cowboys play a weakling, while every other team in the NFC East plays someone good. Week nine has the makings of a pleasant week, along with some potentially huge and/or exciting games across the league both early and late.

A good week to be a football fan, and thus a good week to talk about football with the SB Nation Dallas-Ft. Worth staff. Click the jump to read along, or join in with your own thoughts, observations, and attempts at humor. It all starts at 11:30!

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Week eight is such a depressing time in the NFL season. Seemingly out of nowhere, the season is half-over. Of course, you could be a cup half-full person, and saw we still have a whole other half to the season left, with dramatically fewer sports in the way now.

The early games this week are not especially compelling, outside of simply being football. The late games are where it's at, and of course the Sunday Night game is just a little bit massive.

While you sit on your couch and watch, fire up the SB Nation Dallas-Ft. Worth live blog & chat, and follow along with the staff's observations on the game, or join in with your own conversation and commentary. It's fun, I promise! Chat window found after the jump.

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And that is how the season ends. For hundreds of thousands of sports fans, one of the greatest World Series ever played just ended, though with an anti-climactic finish. The moments and games will be replayed for as long as sports history is recounted on the expanse of media.

For Rangers fans, this was not a great series. Memorable, thrilling games could not be enjoyed, because of what was on the line. They will be fumbling for the remote whenever ESPN goes to the great moments of Game Six. The anti-climactic finish, meanwhile, at least makes things a little less painful.

The Rangers have come so far from where they once were. They have gone from five decades of being perennial nobodies to back-to-back league champions. They have an ever-increasing ability to spend cash, a newly-energized fan base, a stacked Major League roster, and one of the strongest farm systems around ready to replenish them when the time comes. Pennants are never guaranteed, but the Texas Rangers remain one of the best bets to go back sooner, rather than later.

Yet here they are, having now lost back-to-back World Series. One without even showing up, and one in historic fashion. Twice a strike away from winning, twice with relievers staked to multi-run leads, and twice coming short, only to fall flat when given a second chance.

Tonight Chris Carpenter was not at his best, but the hitters could not take advantage. Ron Washington repeatedly held back the offense with ridiculous bunt calls, but that likely was not the difference between winning and losing. What may have been the difference, though, was the Jerry Layne strikezone.

Emphasis on may, but it looked like this:

That was tonight's strikezone, with red baseball-sized rings placed around the Cardinals' pitches which were called balls, despite the center crossing the front of the plate outside the zone. A few were borderline, maybe even strikes. The Cardinals were not given an exceptionally large zone outside of regulations.

The green circles are the problem. Those are the Rangers pitches that at least clipped the front of the plate within the zone, all closer to the zone than some pitches the Cardinals got, and there are a ton of them. There are 13, in fact, with a few that may have crossed the plate before the end of their flight.

In short, for whatever reason (note: that reason is not bias), the Rangers were given a different -- smaller -- strikezone than the Cardinals. They lost by four runs, and the offense managed to plate two batters -- both in the first inning -- so Layne may well have altered nothing meaningful. It should also be no surprise if someone goes and looks up strikezones from previous postseason games and finds one that favored the Rangers. You cannot pin losing the World Series entirely on the umpires, but baseball should not be like this. We should not be subjected to human error in officiating that might favor one of the teams -- even if not on purpose -- on the biggest stage the game has to offer.

Couple that with the wrong first base call in game three, and Rangers fans have what-ifs to try and avoid thinking about for the rest of their life outside of just the players. What if C.J. Wilson does not lose the All-Star Game? What if Elvis Andrus goes to second? What if Michael Young could be the player on the big stage the media expected him to be? What if Darren Oliver could simply get through the weak part of a lineup without allowing two runs?

It is fortunate game seven did not have a whole lot of those what-ifs. The offense scored twice immediately, then sputtered for the rest of the game. Matt Harrison failed for the second time in the series. The team that may have been the best in baseball looked absolutely awful for the last 12 innings of their season, and that cost their fans the best chance they have ever had of seeing a championship.

The silver linings, of course, are the state of the franchise. Once we get closer to the start of next season, we can all enjoy the future still looking great, and having had success many teams would actually kill for in recent years. But boy, this hurts, and finding someone to understand the pain will be difficult.

Congratulations to the Cardinals on their 11th world championship. They did not just win the World Series because the Rangers ended it with awful play, or because of good luck, or because of bad umpiring. They won because they did not give up on their season, and they played great baseball against three very good teams for a month.

GAME CHARTS

Source: FanGraphs

Biggest Failures

1. Matt Harrison -14%
2. Scott Feldman -12%
3. Elvis Andrus -8%

Jerry Layne's Strikezone from Brooks Baseball

With two more tense games -- fortunately both wins -- the Rangers have two more moments of Win Probability Added large enough to make the top 20 in franchise postseason history. You will probably not be surprised to find out: they are both courtesy of the same guy.

Adrian Beltre's one-knee homerun last night failed to make the list because of rounding, as it was technically 16.6% WPA. Rounding up, that ties it with the bottom four from the list.

Of course, two additions means two subtractions. Josh Hamilton's ALCS game-tying fifth inning single in game five, and his single to start an 11th inning rally in game four have been dropped.

20. 2011 ALCS, Game 2: In Arlington, Detroit closer Jose Valverde came in to get his team to extra innings, and Adrian Beltre greeted him with an immediate -- and deep -- double. The Rangers' Win Expectancy shot to 83% for 17% Win Probability Added, but unfortunately, while the Rangers loaded the bases before getting an out, they failed to bring in the run. Fortunately, they got another chance in the 11th inning and did not waste that one.

19. 2011 ALDS, Game 3: In the bottom of the eighth, the Rays put runners on first and second. Neftali Feliz was called in to end the threat with two outs, his team up 4-3. A wild pitch advanced the runners, but Feliz settled down and struck out Ben Zobrist for 17% Win Probability Added. The huge K put the Rangers at 86% Win Expectancy, and they held on to win.

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Magic Number: 1

Game five of the 2011 World Series will be forever defined by two huge moments, and each involved a man cast off from the former class of the AL West for garbage.

The story of this game was another thrilling addition to likely the best World Series played since Luis Gonzalez floated a ball over the head of Derek Jeter. The Rangers faced an early 0-2 deficit, tied the game with just 10 outs to go, and finally went on to victory. But it was made in the last six outs of the contest.

The Rangers' eighth began with the Cardinals' big bats up in the 9th, and Michael Young at the plate. Octavio Dotel was brought in for relief, and Young helped people once again forget how awful he has been in the postseason with a lined opposite field shot, splitting the outfielders for a double.

Next was Adrian Beltre, the reason the Rangers were tied. Beltre had spent the entire game timing Chris Carpenter's curveball by going to one knee, and finally timed it right by launch a game-tying home run with two outs in the sixth. That bought him plenty of good will -- and was hilarious to watch -- but here he struck out. An intentional walk of Nelson Cruz brought up David Murphy.

Tony LaRussa went to Marc Rzepczynski for platoon advantage, and Ron Washington -- no doubt remembering the failures of Torrealba and German -- stuck with his lefty. In practice, Murphy failed, hitting the first pitch he saw on the ground. In actuality, the ball was twice misplayed, the bases were loaded, and the man who would be king was up: Mike Napoli.

We all know Napoli crushes lefties. It is right there with death and taxes. It is just what he does. Yet, Tony LaRussa left in Rzepczynski to face him. In perhaps the biggest at-bat of the postseason, Mike Napoli was getting to face a lefty with the bases loaded. The stadium filled to the brim with the chants of NA-PO-LI. Really, the fact that the ball was kept in the park has to be a small victory for the Cardinals.

It was not a grand slam, but Napoli hurt LaRussa's managing with a double to the wall scoring two, making him the second player ever with four multi-RBI games in a World Series. The first player was Mickey Mantle. More importantly, it gave the Rangers the lead. It took some amazing work -- and luck -- to get there, but the Rangers were three outs from pushing St. Louis's backs against the wall.

Supposedly, LaRussa wanted to go with Motte. It would make sense to bring in his righty relief ace there, instead of allowing Napoli an opportunity to build his growing World Series MVP resume. Supposedly, the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington crowd was so loud, it made a call to the bullpen difficult. That is a bit hard to believe, but as Christopher suggested in the Lone Star Ball postgame discussion, it is something a Rangers fan should want to believe. The idea that Rangers fans inserted themselves directly in to postseason lore is. . . intense.

Of course, the game was not over there. Neftali Feliz had to close it, and he struggled immediately by hitting Allen Craig to bring up Albert Pujols as the tying run with no outs. After a long battle with Pujols, Tony LaRussa called for a hit and run, and Feliz made Pujols swing miserably for the first out. The Albert Pujols. The unbeatable machine that Washington has insisted on walking as often as possible. In such a huge situation, Feliz struck out one of the greatest right handed hitters in the history of baseball.

Meanwhile, Napoli inserted himself again in to the game, this time nailing Craig with miles to spare at second after the Pujols whiff. It was, by the way, the second time Napoli gunned down Craig -- easily -- while trying to steal. Mike Napoli, of course, cannot play catcher.

The Cardinals got another baserunner, but two outs with Pujols gone is a completely different situation. Feliz struck out Lance Berkman to win the game, and the Rangers found themselves up 3-2 in the World Series.

These were the big moments, but they were not all that mattered. They had plenty of support. The first run came from Mitch Moreland -- benched through most of the postseason -- hammering a Chris Carpenter pitch deep in to the upper deck. There was the usual Great Wall of Beltre, some nifty fielding by Elvis Andrus, and a couple of Ian Kinsler walks.

C.J. Wilson was a combination of bad and held back by a zone that was noticeably smaller for him than it was Carpenter, but he was also at times good and at times lucky. He unfortunately did nothing to endear himself to critical fans it what may have just been his last start ever as a Ranger, but Cardinals also scored only two runs off of him. Luck and defense played a part in that, but at least his last start -- if it was indeed -- will not go down as a game five loss. Alexi Ogondo had similar struggles, with fortunately little damage, but Darren Oliver and Scott Feldman locked down the Cardinals to get the game to Feliz.

And just like that, the Rangers are, again, closer than they ever have been to a championship. They won a game that at times they seemed destined to lose, but now have two shots at winning one game for a world title. There is no other way to put what the next game (or two) mean. A simple win and things change forever.

Forever.

GAME CHARTS

Source: FanGraphs

Biggest Contributions (What is this, I don't even. . . ?)

1. Darren Oliver 19%
2. David Murphy 11%
3. Mike Napoli 4%

Ted Barrett's Strikezone from Brooks Baseball

VOTE FOR THE PLAYER OF THE GAME!

The Rangers came back from a 2-0 deficit to take a 3-2 lead in the World Series. One game from their first ever championship in franchise history.

Vote for the player of the game here.

Growing up watching the World Series, I have always loved the big moments, where we all know something incredible has happened, and the booth goes silent so we can listen to the crowd react as we sit on our couches and take in the magic of October. Those are the best part of baseball to me, but never had I gotten to see the Rangers in one.

Until last night, though, one of those moments had never involved a Ranger. Derek Holland's standing ovation as he walked off the mound was the kind of think Texas fans have long waited for, and it was special. While Joe Buck gets a lot of (deserved) criticism, he does no when to shut up and let the crowd take over, and it made the ovation all the better.

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