SINCE THEIR INCEPTION 52 years ago, the Texas Rangers have allowed more runs than every team in Major League Baseball. Of the two dozen teams around since 1972, they have yielded the most baserunners, booked the fewest quality starts and allowed the most inherited runners to score. The Rangers have lived an ignominious, championship-free existence precisely because they cannot figure out how to successfully execute one of the game's three core tenets: throwing the ball.
There is nothing about Texas that makes it particularly inhospitable to the starting pitcher -- nothing beyond a combination of mismanagement, injuries and bad luck.