Texas Rangers and Houston Astros will begin a series tonight in Tampa Bay. Not Houston or Arlington, but Tampa Bay due to the horrible flooding in Houston area. Texas and Houston meet again at the end of the year with Rangers being at home. Houston asked Texas to switch the series, and the three games late in the year will be played at Houston. That didn’t go over well with their in-state rival. To me, it’s a callous move at a time like this, and while you can understand Texas’ plight, life is bigger than baseball sometimes.

#Astros & Rangers will play their upcoming series at Tropicana Field in St.Petersburg, Fla because Rangers refused to play ball w/the Astros pic.twitter.com/h5TSfWmCCf

— Mark Berman (@MarkBermanFox26) August 28, 2017

Currently, Texas sits three games out of the last American League Wild Card in a jammed American League. There are a few teams ahead of them, and the Rangers are two games under .500. They want to have the ability to play these games at the end of the year at home versus on the road in case, there’s a chance at the playoffs. Texas succeeded by telling Houston that they refuse to switch the series because of a playoff chance. There’s no doubt in my mind that if Rangers were 20 games under .500, these series would have been switched.

At the same time, what do the fourth-place Texas Rangers have to worry about with Houston? They’re very good, yes we know that, but also, they are running away with the division. Even if the games are hosted by Houston, they’re not going to be trotting out their full roster as they try to get people healthy for the postseason. It’s ridiculous that Texas thought baseball was more important than a natural disaster. Instead of making it easier on everyone, it’s being moved to the basement of baseball with Tampa Bay.

I’m sure the series will run smoothly, just ashamed there had to be drama.

Charlie.