Kenny Rogers

A friend that I work with presented me with this questions a couple of months ago, as Ranger's pitcher Kenny Rogers was in the middle of his amazing start to the season: Is Kenny Rogers the greatest Ranger's pitcher ever?  Inevitably, one tosses around Nolan Ryan, Fergie Jenkins, Gaylord Perry, but all three of those pitchers pitched for the Rangers in the twilight of their careers (though Nolan had the two no-hitters as a Ranger, which is quite an achievement, the rest of his milestones just happened to come as a Ranger).  If you boil it down to "pitchers that have done the most as a player for this time" then Kenny Rogers can, quite possibly, be considered the greatest.  I'd have to look it up (and am too lazy to do so right now), but it wouldn't surprise me if he has the most wins as a Ranger of any other pitcher for this team.  He also has the only perfect game in franchise history.  Irregardless of if he's destined to be remembered league-wide when his career is done, he is certain to be remembered by Ranger's fans for a long, long time.

The problem is, now he'll be remembered for antics outside of the game.

I wrote, yesterday, about the unfortunate crumbling of this team.  It was before Rogers decided to take the field in pre-game warm-ups, and assault two cameramen in a completely unprovoked attack.  Pervasive in my post was the sense of something bubbling over in the clubhouse.  I wasn't the only one, as Jamey Newberg, in his daily report of yesterday, outlined the intensifying PR situation surrounding Rogers (this was before the incident of last night) and Adam Morris at Lone Star Ball, earlier in the week, spoke to the obvious clubhouse chaos that was emerging.  So how, then, did a vague sense of something amiss turn into last night's ugly incident?

Back in the off-season, a story began to be leaked to the media (and was considered suspicious at the time) that the Ranger's Ace was threatening to retire if the team didn't give him a two year contract extension.  To most, it seemed to be a leak perpetrated by the front office to make Rogers look bad in the media and get him to shut up and play ball.  It is hard to say which party took the worst of the hits, but what is apparent now is that Rogers felt like he did.

Fast-forward to the season, as Rogers begins pitching the way he did in the previous season: incredibly.  He appears, by all accounts, to be getting better as he gets older.  He entered June with a 7-2 with a sub 2.00 ERA.  There were very few pitchers in the league who were pitching better than he was and, it appeared that the Rangers were going to pay dearly for not agreeing to a contract extension, because Kenny was gonna be expensive at the end of the season he was having.

Last year's surprising number 2 starter, Ryan Drese, struggled all season long and was unceremoniously dumped.  It was, apparently, a decision that didn't sit well with Rogers (and a decision that I disagreed with, as I wrote in my post yesterday.

On June 17th, Rogers gets to the 7th inning against the Washington Nationals with a shutout.  He ended up giving a solo home run up, and then allowed one more runner to get aboard.  Facing Nick Johnson, he walked him on a 3-2 count and a very questionable called ball four.  He was then pulled and, once in the dugout, punched a water cooler, fracturing the pinkie in his non-pitching hand.

He tried to pitch in his next start in a crucial series against the LA-naheim Angels, and was beaten up pretty easily.  Only after this start was his non-pitching hand injury made public (a move which I have no problem with).  After this, as Evan Grant said in his article today, the story got stranger by the day:

      He took a shot of a numbing agent hours before his next scheduled start       but pitched poorly against the Angels. On Monday, he told Showalter he       wouldn't be able to pitch Tuesday. That began speculation on several       talk shows that Rogers was ducking the Angels, perhaps as a leverage       ploy.

The speculation was thought to be, in part, spawned by the front office, again, in a possible pre-emptive smear campaign against the hurler.

So, going into last night's game, it is hard to understand how we didn't all see the signs of something like this happening.  It was a powder-keg ready to explode at any moment and, unfortunately for Rogers, his fuse got too low and he blew up in a way that may end his career with the Rangers.

Take a moment to digest this: Within the course of about 3 weeks, the Rangers could completely part ways with three of their starting pitchers, two of which are already gone and one of which may remain with the organization until the trade deadline, but it is hard to see how he's a part of this ballclub's plans, both immediate and future.

Rogers' actions, like Frankie Francisco's thuggery of last season, are inexcusable, and he deserves every bit of punishment he has coming to him. The Rangers are just as responsible because of the calloused and passionless way they run this team.  It is just one of those sad sports stories about how a guy who could have been considered great in this town will now be remembered as a guy who threw it away because he couldn't hold his temper and a team who let it happen because dollars will always mean more to them than loyalty to players or fans.

Comments

[Melissa]

omg you are such a p1 it hurts!

[Dylan]

Totally... You know me too well...