Cook My Texas Rangers have decided to tease me for even longer this year. When I looked at the standings Monday night (an off night for the Rangers), they were 41-27 with a 3.5 game lead over the second place LA Angels.

Although it’s not the All- Star break yet, a 58-game sampling of a 162-game season is starting to look significant. It’s bringing into play Bill Parcell’s “you are what you are” philosophy into baseball as it pertains to Texas.

Just look at a few facts.

The Rangers are third in all of baseball in batting average at .277, only two points behind the leading KC Royals. Strangely, they’re only ninth in homeruns ... a stat they usually are at or near the top of each year.

More importantly, however, they are fourth in both runs scored and runs batted in for all of the major leagues. That’s a stat that really counts. And that is likely fueled by another stat, the Rangers are sixth in the majors in On Base Percentage, so they’ve got lots of ducks on the pond to be driven home.

Now, pitching. This one doesn’t seem like much, but the Rangers are 11th in the majors in Earned Run Average at 3.97. When’s the last time you’ve seen a Texas staff with an ERA under 4 in the Ball Park??

Me, neither.

And this “no pitch count” philosophy the Rangers are employing? Must be working somewhat. They’re sixth in the majors in complete games pitched.

And, while they’ve walked 263 batters, they’ve also struck out 514. That’s a pretty solid ratio.

They’re doing all this while being basically in the middle of the pack for all of the majors in defensive stats like fielding percentage, errors, and earned runs given up.

All in all, I’m not sure if they’ve got everything they need to make a deep run into the playoffs ... but they have enough to make me hope that there may be playoffs in their future.

I don’t want to have to say “wait til next year,” this year ... again.

Loyd Cook has worked in newspapers for 17 years. He has earned multiple sportswriting and newswriting awards from the Texas Press Association and the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors organization.