Snakebitten

Somewhere in the confines of Minute Maid Park, I'd imagine that Nolan Ryan is grinning as he puts away the voodoo set he's used to curse the Rangers with.

I literally can't think of a better explanation for why this ball club is so snakebitten, the latest victims being Martin Perez and Matt Harrison.

Perez has a partial UCL tear in his pitching elbow, and will almost certainly require Tommy John surgery. Given the way those recoveries generally go, Perez would likely be a non factor until closer to the 2016 season.

Matt Harrison's news is even more bleak, as a spinal fusion surgery could threaten his career.

As far as bad news goes, this is pretty bad. The Rangers will now have only one piece of what was figured to absolutely be a lock for the rotation before the season in Yu Darvish, and he can't carry the team more than once every five days.

At this point, it would seem the organization would need to make a decision as to the competitive prospect in the short-term against rebuilding for the future. As bad as that may sound, it's awfully difficult to win with a rotation full of replacements, and attempting to solidify the roster now would mean trading away pieces that could be important to rebuilding over the next several years should things continue to spiral downward.

The season isn't over by any means, but the prospects just got significantly more dim. Literally no headline could surprise me at this point.