Inside Baseball: Ryan has kept the Rangers on track

BALTIMORE - Even for a team that trains in an Arizona town called Surprise, the events that unfolded around the Texas Rangers this spring were baseball bombshells.

In mid-March, manager Ron Washington acknowledged he had tested positive for cocaine in 2009. Then in May, after a proposed sale of the team to a group headed by Nolan Ryan stalled, the Rangers filed for bankruptcy.

Drugs and money, the two subjects the sport's executives and players would most like to ignore, had detonated in the Rangers' clubhouse. Stunned observers waited for the fallout.

After all, a team without money is a team without hope. And though club president Ryan and general manager Jon Daniels decided not to fire Washington, cocaine questions were bound to dog him and his team all season long.

Smaller distractions - much smaller distractions - have doomed seasons. And historically it hasn't taken much to doom the Rangers, a franchise that has won exactly one postseason game in a 49-year existence that began in Washington.

And yet, three-quarters of the way through this 2010 schedule, the team that Ryan watches nightly from a now-familiar seat behind home plate at Rangers Ballpark appears to be the safest bet to reach the postseason.

Despite a recent four-game losing streak, Texas on Friday held a seven-game lead over the Angels in the AL West.

What has happened to reignite one of only three franchises to never have appeared in a World Series (Seattle and Washington are the others)?

According to manager Washington, even on the chaotic day that followed SI.com's revelation about his drug use, his team never lost its way. In June, when the financial uncertainty was at its height and then-owner Tom Hicks reportedly was borrowing money from Major League Baseball just to make payroll, Texas responded with baseball's best record, 21-6.

"We came into spring training this year with a focus," Washington, thin and balding, explained on Thursday as his team prepared to meet the Orioles at Camden Yards. "And in the game of baseball, you've got to have focus. We have a mixture of young kids and veterans and they have a tremendous focus out there. They never doubted that they could play. They don't let too much bother them."

Other reasons for the Rangers' success are more apparent.

The laid-back manager, whose failed test led to all sorts of jokes about the Mellow Nose of Texas, has been through a team counseling program. Despite his personal travails and a Phillies-like rash of injuries, Washington has kept a steady rein on the clubhouse.

"He handled it all right away," said third baseman Michael Young. "He met with us, said it was a one-time thing, that it wouldn't happen again, and that was that."

Washington offered to resign immediately, but club officials, upbeat after the team's encouraging 2009 season, determined to stay the course.

"We decided to work through it," said Daniels, 32. "You hope at some point, some good will come out of this. It's best to move forward. I know he has our support, and the players have responded."

While the $570 million sale of the club to the group headed by Ryan and Pittsburgh native Chuck Greenberg wasn't approved until 10 days ago, Daniels somehow found the money to sign free agents Vladimir Guerrero and Rich Harden this off-season and the minor-leaguers to both plug roster holes and pull off the Cliff Lee trade last month.

"He did a very admirable job, given the circumstances we were under," Washington said of Daniels. "I'm so happy we got the ownership thing taken care of. . . . We were financially strapped."

The offense, with the third-best batting average in the big leagues, is loaded, even with all-star second baseman Ian Kinsler and outfielder Nelson Cruz (hitting .320, with 16 homers, 64 RBIs, and 15 steals) on the DL.

Josh Hamilton (.353, 26, 81) is a triple (crown) threat. Guerrero (.299, 21, 87), who wears a Superman T-shirt around the clubhouse, has been superb at 35. Michael Young (.288, 19, 69) is one of the game's bright young stars.

For a team that's never had much pitching to speak of, and which plays in one of the game's most notoriously hitter-friendly parks, the Rangers' staff has been surprisingly good, even before the addition of Lee.

Much of the credit for that improvement goes to Ryan, the tough-as-leather Hall of Famer who, after becoming team president in 2008, publicly challenged his pitchers to go deeper into games.

It worked. In 2009, the Rangers' staff surrendered an astounding 224 fewer runs than it had in '08, and the improvement has continued.

"You can tell the difference in the attitude of the pitching staff since [Ryan] came on," Washington said. "He said guys needed to know how to go deeper into ball games and that they needed to work differently in spring training. They've done all that. That's probably why we're where we are. Our pitching staff has been great."

Colby Lewis (154 strikouts, nine wins, and a 3.37 ERA), a 31-year-old who had spent the previous two seasons in Japan, has been an eye-opener. He and the equally obscure C.J. Wilson (11 wins, 3.19 ERA) have combined for 20 victories.

Lee, surprisingly, hasn't helped all that much yet. The Rangers are 3-6 in games the phleeting Phillie has pitched.

The bullpen has been much better than expected, possessing the third-lowest ERA in the AL, sixth-best in all of baseball. Closer Neftali Feliz has 29 saves and 53 Ks in 512/3 innings.

"They're throwing more strikes," Washington said. "They're not walking as many as in the past. Pitching and defense go hand-in-hand. We've caught the ball behind those guys and that gave them the courage to pound the strike zone."

Ryan's toughness also appears to have informed the entire organization.

"We've taken a no-nonsense approach that if you can't get it done, you can't be a Texas Ranger," Washington said. "Any organization that wants to be successful takes that approach. In the past, we've given opportunities to many people, whether they failed or not. Now, if the effort is always there and we can see growth, then they're going to get a chance to hang. But if your failure is there consistently and we don't see anything happening to make us believe . . . then the organization is moving forward. It's a change in attitude."

The result of all that is that a franchise long known for its flux - it was Hicks, after all, who gave Alex Rodriguez $250 million for 10 years, then traded him - has at last found some stability.

That's why you can now find Ryan - in the words of one team official, "one of the 10 best-known Texans ever" - seated behind home plate at every Rangers home game, his steely gaze bearing down on his pitchers.

And that's why you can also find Greenberg, a Pennsylvania sports attorney, roaming the stands during games.

"What I'm going to focus on, particularly since the baseball side is in great shape, is the business side," Greenberg said last week. "How do we connect with the community? How do we create a higher tempo of energy in the front office? How can we do a better job of filling the stands and make an impact on people's lives? If we succeed on the business side and continue on path on the baseball side and combine it with a dynamic market like this is, we can be and should be one of the powerhouse franchises in baseball."