In the past four seasons the Texas Rangers have gone 370-279, played in two World Series, made the playoffs three out of the four seasons, and in the fourth season made it to a tiebreaker game all under the watchful eye of Ron Washington. Yet here we are, looking forward to the 2014 season and wondering what his fate will be if the Rangers don’t improve on their second place finish in the AL West.
In that same time span the Rangers have watched their lefty ace C.J. Wilson head out to Los Angeles to the rival Angels, and cornerstone of the offense for the two World Series runs, Josh Hamilton joined him one season later. On top of those two huge pieces leaving via free agency he has had to work around injuries to former closer Neftali Feliz and numerous starting pitchers including 2012 Cy Young candidate Matt Harrison. He also had to deal with multiple role players like Mike Napoli, who went to Boston and won a World Series title.
Yet all of the blame continues to fall upon the skipper who took a team that hadn’t made the playoffs since 1999 to two World Series’. Why should all that blame fall on Washington, and is 2014 really a make or break season for the skipper?
The answer could be as simple as looking back at all of the times Washington has had late season altercations in the dugout with his players. There is one that most Oakland Athletics fans will never forget where Washington and Hamilton seemed to be arguing shortly after Hamilton misplayed the ball in game 162 of the 2012 season.
More examples reared their ugly heads this season as catcher A.J. Pierzynski and starting pitcher Yu Darvish butted heads on the mound during a game and another altercation between Washington and one of his players in the dugout, this time with starting pitcher Derek Holland. He seems to have lost all control of this team, and it seems to show down the home stretch in the final months of the season.
Upper management believes in Washington, though, and is giving him another shot. If these examples of him losing control of his team continues in the 2014 it could spell the end of the in a Ranger uniform. Is it his fault that he’s lost the team? No. A good portion of the players that are still remaining on the 2011 team that lost the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals haven’t mentally recovered. Since that fateful World Series loss the team has watched the team fade offensively in the final month of the season for two seasons, and there isn’t much a manager can do to help once failure is stuck in the head of a player.
So yes, 2014 will be a make or break season for Washington, but it shouldn’t just be him that is on his way out if the team fails again. Marquee players like Adrian Beltre, Ian Kinsler and Elvis Andrus should be worried about being moved to a new team as well, because failure of this size doesn’t fall on one man, it falls on a team, and the team just hasn’t lived up to the expectations that Washington built.