Matt Harrison

The Texas Rangers are just a few weeks away from opening up spring training in Surprise, Ariz.

Luckily for the club, most of its roster is filled with healthy players getting ready for the day-to-day grind. However, there are a few players who will not be joining the Rangers. There are some who will have a tougher time getting back into the groove because of injuries.

There is only one spot left undecided in the Texas Rangers starting rotation for 2014.

It is presumably for the fourth or fifth spot. The team has three lefties in Derek Holland, Martin Perez and Matt Harrison, and Yu Darvish is the lone righty.

The Rangers announced bad news regarding pitcher Matt Harrison on Friday afternoon:

Rangers GM Jon Daniels says Matt Harrison has a herniated disk. Will have back surgery Tuesday.

The Texas Rangers' quest to catch the surging Oakland Athletics in the AL West just got a whole lot more difficult.

According to the Rangers' official Twitter feed, starting pitcher Matt Harrison will undergo back surgery for a herniated disc and be out until after the All-Star break:

On a day after scoring eight runs on 15 hits, and 19 runs over the last three games, the Giants surging offense was brought to a screeching halt Friday evening. Scattering just five hits over eight innings, Matt Harrison (8-3) pitched a complete-game shutout for the Rangers while Ian Kinsler and Josh Hamilton homered to beat the Giants 5-0.    

Matt Harrison and Alexi Ogando had two terrific performances which have helped propel the Rangers to a 9-1 record and an early lead in the AL West. The Rangers toyed with the idea of starting Neftali Feliz this spring training, and there was considerable support to put him in the depleted rotation.

My last article predicted the final records for the AL West teams. I came up with this:

LA 88-74
Seattle 87-75
Oakland 84-78
Texas 82-80

Obviously, I think it's going to be close.

The next thing I wanted to do was look at the starting rotations of each team, pitcher-by-pitcher, and grade them.

Without further ado, here's my look at Texas.

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It’s officially time to fear the Texas Rangers, although it has taken almost the whole decade. There is not a single reason why the Rangers are in first place right now, it’s a combination of everything. That’s the sign of a winning team, and a team to fear.

Pitching is the most important thing in baseball. No fan would disagree with that. Everyone loves to see the long ball, but the long ball doesn’t matter if the other team scores.