PHILADELPHIA — With the 50-game pole approaching for this season trek, there is plenty of excitement around the Phillies and also a goodly share of speculation that there aren’t that many good teams floating around out there in the major leagues. The Phillies stood alone with an MLB-best 35 wins after a 5-2 victory over the defending champion Texas Rangers Tuesday night at Citizens Bank Park. To this point, however, there has been much talk about how a relatively easy early schedule has played a major role in the Phillies’ bolt from the season gate.
It doesn’t take too long to figure out that the Phillies aren’t alone in facing seemingly lesser challenges, since they are only one of five National League teams with a better-than .500 record. And over in the American League, while seven teams checked in through Monday’s games at better than .
500 marks, two of them were only one game above .500. And not among those seven? The defending champs from Texas town.
The Rangers are now 24-25. What gives? “First of all, they have a lot of injuries,” Phils manager Rob Thomson said in defense of the opposition before Tuesday’s game. “Their (starting) rotation’s banged up.
But they’re going to get healthy at some point and they’re going to be real good and tough to handle. “There’s a lot of parity in the game and a lot of good teams out there, but if you run into injuries it’s going to set you back a little bit.” Indeed the Rangers are more than a bit shor.
