Rangers’ Heavy Artillery Out of Ammunition Again

New York Yankee pitchers reduced the American League’s best offensive team to rubble in the division series, holding the Texas Rangers to one run in three games, a record low for a postseason series.

The Yankees also limited the Rangers, who hit .289 and ranked second in the league with 940 runs, to 13 hits--10 singles and three doubles--in 92 at-bats for a .141 average, also a record playoff low.

The reason? The over-aggressive and impatient Ranger batters did not adjust to the way Yankee starters David Wells, Andy Pettitte and David Cone pitched to them.

“We wanted to take advantage of their aggressiveness,” said Cone, who shut out Texas for 5 2/3 innings and struck out six Friday night. “We knew they liked to swing the bats and didn’t like to walk, so we wanted to expand the strike zone on them, get them to chase pitches.

“We sensed they were a little anxious because there were a lot of one-pitch outs. They were really fired up and thought they could beat us, and we took advantage of that.”

The loss was the Rangers’ sixth straight in division series play, all to the Yankees, and it brought a swift and bittersweet end to a season in which the Rangers won their second West division title in three years.

Texas won the West by beating the Angels five times in eight days in the final two weeks of the season, sweeping a three-game series in Anaheim by the combined score of 25-3, but it was difficult to remember that accomplishment through the disappointment of the division series.

“These guys should keep the perspective of not being satisfied with just winning the division,” Ranger Manager Johnny Oates said. “But they should also go home knowing the organization is headed in the right direction.

“In its first 35 years, the Rangers never made it to the playoffs; we’ve gone twice in three years. They need to go home thinking of themselves as winners, wanting to go home and get better . . . and finish that goal of not just winning the division but the World Series.”

Re-signing free agent shortstop Royce Clayton is a winter priority for the Rangers, and new owner Tom Hicks has indicated he is willing to spend the kind of money it takes to remain a pennant contender, meaning that if Texas can’t re-sign right-hander Todd Stottlemyre, it should have the funds to add a pitcher of comparable ability.

With an improved Rick Helling and Aaron Sele and a rejuvenated John Burkett, and an offense featuring Rusty Greer, Juan Gonzalez, Will Clark and Ivan Rodriguez, the Rangers likely will enter 1999 as the favorite to win the West.

But if the Rangers want to advance deeper in the playoffs, they will need much better production from the heart of their order: Greer, Gonzalez, Clark and Rodriguez, the third through sixth batters in the lineup, combined to go four for 44 (.091) with one RBI against the Yankees.

Gonzalez went on a tear in the 1996 division series, hitting .438 (seven for 16) with five homers and nine RBIs in four games against the Yankees, but Clark and Greer did not drive in a run in a combined 32 at-bats in that series.

Clark and Greer, who sandwich Gonzalez in the order, combined for 210 RBIs this season, but the pair went two for 22 with no RBIs in the division series this season. Greer is a career .310 hitter, but is three for 27 (.111) with no RBIs in the playoffs.

After Clark drove a Mitch Williams pitch for a game-winning hit to put the San Francisco Giants in the 1989 World Series, he batted .489 with 11 RBIs in postseason play.

But that was Clark’s last playoff run-scoring hit. He has not had an RBI in his last 11 postseason games and, perhaps fittingly, he grounded out with a runner at third base Friday night for the Rangers’ last out in their 4-0 loss to the Yankees.

“This will be a conversation topic for fans from this winter all the way to spring training,” Oates said of the Rangers’ playoff failures. “I’ll probably never have a concrete answer.

“Because of the magnitude of the games, maybe we were trying to do too much, trying to do it all by oneself. There was no room for error. Everyone will probably have a theory as to why we didn’t hit better.”

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Mounds of Success

Yankee starting pitchers have been dominant all season, and the trend continued in the divisional playoffs in a sweep of Texas:

DAVID WELLS--GAME 1

Innings: 8

Pitches: 134

Runs: 0

Earned Runs: 0

Strikeouts: 9

Walks: 1

****

ANDY PETTITTE--GAME 2

Innings: 7

Pitches: 95

Runs: 1

Earned Runs: 1

Strikeouts: 8

Walks: 0

****

DAVID CONE--GAME 3

Innings: 5 2/3

Pitches: 83

Runs: 0

Earned Runs: 0

Strikeouts: 6

Walks: 1