On Baseball: Rangers Move On And Fire Away Without Lee

The Yankees stashed Phil Hughes on the disabled list, essentially because of a sudden inability to throw hard. Their rookie right-hander, Ivan Nova, then failed to complete five innings for the second start in a row. In one night, two rotation spots looked fragile.

The Rangers, meanwhile, lined up three pitchers who did not start in their run to the World Series last fall. The Rangers had hoped to start the season with the injured right-handers Tommy Hunter and Brandon Webb in the rotation, and strongly considered shifting closer Neftali Feliz. Yet they started Saturday with a 2.50 earned run average, the lowest in the majors.

Matt Harrison lasted eight innings in a victory on Friday, and Derek Holland went seven and two-thirds innings in a 5-2 loss on Saturday. Alexi Ogando, who faces C. C. Sabathia on Sunday night, has won twice this season, allowing no runs.

“They have great stuff and they’re young,” said the left-hander C. J. Wilson, who started on opening day. “That’s the thing, people always discount guys that haven’t done it yet, but nobody has until they do it. So you have to look at the guys who have potential to do it.”

Holland, another left-hander, said he talked much more with Wilson than he did with Lee, who arrived last July with the Rangers comfortably in first place. Lee helped the team immensely in the playoffs, but not so much in the regular season; the Rangers won just 6 of his 15 starts.

The Yankees, who never had Lee, probably needed him more, especially after Andy Pettitte retired. They were smart to sign the veterans Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia, though their upside is limited. Hughes, 24, was supposed to be embarking on his prime, but for now he is lost, a slide that began well before the Rangers thrashed him twice in the American League Championship Series.

Hughes looked terrific last April, the way the Rangers’ pitchers look now. A lot can change in a long season. But Ron Washington, the Texas manager, said he sensed that Harrison, 25, and Holland, 24, had matured.

“When you’ve got youth, you never know when there’s going to be that hiccup,” Washington said. “In the first inning last night, when Harrison came out and threw all those balls?

“Last year, that would have snowballed. When he got into the fifth inning and couldn’t find the strike zone? That would have snowballed. When he got into the eighth inning and they started rattling him? That would have snowballed. But he stopped every threat.”

Holland, who beat the Yankees in relief in the playoffs, matched his career high with 118 pitches Saturday. Washington said he liked the matchups in the eighth inning, and Holland still seemed strong. With Nolan Ryan atop the organization and Mike Maddux guiding the pitchers, the Rangers preach endurance from their starters.

Wilson switched to the rotation from the bullpen last season and worked 204 innings, going 15-8. A hamstring injury slowed him this spring, but he has pitched well enough so far and sees a side benefit to his lighter workload in camp.

“I feel like, physically, it’ll allow me to maybe peak a little bit later this year,” Wilson said.

The Rangers, who sat out the playoffs in the first decade of the 2000s, can think confidently now about the postseason. The A.L. West is challenging, loaded with dominant starters. But the Rangers — who salute good plays with claw-and-antler hand motions — play with an endearing style.

“I saw it last year, with the claw and all that stuff,” said catcher Mike Napoli, a former Angel.

“You can always tell when teams have fun, and they’re loose and they go out and play hard. We didn’t like it because they were our rivals in the division. But I’m glad I’m a part of it now.”

The engine of the Rangers’ offense is Josh Hamilton, last season’s A.L. most valuable player, who could miss the next two months after breaking a bone in his right arm on a headfirst slide at the plate last Tuesday.

But the Rangers lost Hamilton, Nelson Cruz and Ian Kinsler for long stretches last season, and still wound up in the World Series.

Cruz and Kinsler are healthy now, and Michael Young — who had asked to be traded after the signing of Adrian Beltre bumped him off third base — is hitting .339. If their pitchers keep performing, the Rangers could stay in first place for a while.

“Character- and makeup-wise, this group’s off the charts,” Young said. “It’s a great group to be around every day, and I think it’s just the way every guy’s wired here. When you have 25 guys who are the same way, we feel like we can overcome a lot of things.”