But many thoughts shared by our good friend who's joining us right now on the Diamond Factory

Ticket Hotline. It is Texas Rangers beat rider and our good pal Evan Grant joining us live from

Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. Evan, thanks for the time today. I know you're very busy, sir.

I've never too busy for you guys. Well, we appreciate that. I know you and Sean have been cranking out a lot of content on the morning news

side.

I want to direct everybody to what you wrote yesterday, and I thought it was pretty intriguing

because if you simply look at the schedule, the first 40 games of the season seem a little daunting,

and it starts with a playoff caliber team.

Heck, maybe a championship caliber team in the Phillies today.

Yeah. And it wasn't a sentiment that was shared by everybody since I got an email from a reader

this morning saying that this was the riveting kind of journalism that he pays to the morning

news every day.

What team won't have 40 important games to start the year?

And look, the larger point is, yeah, the first 40 games are important for anybody,

but I think the first 40 games for this team with what they're trying to accomplish,

and the challenge that goes with their schedule,

I think is a significant one. We can talk about the winning percentage and the caliber of

pitchers that they will face and the opponents that they will face. We can talk about what the

Rangers are trying to accomplish offensively this year and how that is such a big focus.

And I think when you put all of that together, you know, if the Rangers can get through this first 40-game schedule,

this first 40-game stretch that those two of the Cub series in the second week of May,

they'll be in a much better position to really kind of surge over the final three quarters of the season.

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