{"id":31410,"date":"2025-05-16T13:38:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T13:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/31410\/"},"modified":"2025-05-16T13:38:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T13:38:12","slug":"when-did-michael-young-know-the-2010-11-texas-rangers-were-special","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/31410\/","title":{"rendered":"When did Michael Young know the 2010-11 Texas Rangers were special?"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re approaching the 15th anniversary of the Texas Rangers<\/a>\u2019 first-ever American League pennant and World Series berth, a team whose de facto captain was Rangers Hall of Famer Michael Young.<\/p>\n

Young, who played in over 1,800 games for the Rangers during his major league career, was also lucky enough to be the first-ever guest on The Dallas Morning News\u2019 new SportsDay Rangers podcast<\/a> with longtime beat reporter Evan Grant and Rangers senior advisor and team historian John Blake.<\/p>\n

Below is an excerpt from the podcast in which Young was asked about those 2010-11 pennant-winning Rangers teams and shared a story about when he knew that that group might have a little something. Young says he remembers the moment when he knew they could take down the LA Angels, who had won five of six AL West division championships going into the 2010 season.<\/p>\n

See what Young had to say below. To watch the full podcast episode, click here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Rangers<\/p>\n

Be the smartest Rangers fan. Get the latest news.<\/p>\n

Related:SportsDay Rangers, Ep. 1: Introducing DMN\u2019s latest in-depth podcast series<\/a><\/p>\n

Question: What do you remember most about that era of Texas Rangers baseball, the chemistry and camaraderie of those teams, when did it start to come together?<\/p>\n

Michael Young: \u201cThe chemistry and camaraderie were pretty incredible and obviously the talent spoke for itself, but before those stretches we had some incredibly talented teams. You know, 2008, that\u2019s [Josh Hamilton\u2019s] first year, he takes the league by storm. But a couple years before that we have Mark Teixeira, Alfonso Soriano, Hank Blalock. Gary Matthews Jr. had an incredible year. There were players making big impacts, but it wasn\u2019t a very well-rounded club. Obviously.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight when we got to 2009 you could see a more well-rounded team taking shape. A lot of those guys I mentioned were gone and we\u2019d started to fill those holes, [Ian Kinsler] had arrived and solidified his role, Josh, [Nelson Cruz] had broken through and established himself. It was starting to really take shape.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you play together for a year, then a second year, and now there\u2019s a really, really tight-knit group of guys. You start filling that in some of the young pitching that\u2019s arriving, you have Colby [Lewis] come over, now we\u2019re in a position to be super-aggressive at the deadline. Hello, Cliff<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201c… That four-year stretch, whatever it was, it was pretty damn cool coming to the ballpark every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Question: Is there something in your mind that encapsulates that season?<\/p>\n

Young: \u201cI can talk a long time on this one but the biggest thing I remember, right when we signed [Vladimir Guerrero] before spring training, before I left for camp I did an appearance here in Dallas. I get asked the same questions before every season, every season it\u2019s the same answer: \u2018If things go our way, we have a shot.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd by \u2018our way,\u2019 I meant, \u2018All of us are on fire, and several Angels get hurt.\u2019 That\u2019d be things going our way, let\u2019s just be honest. They had us outgunned, from a talent perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut going into 2010, taking Vladdy out of their lineup and putting him in ours, that was the first time I thought we should win if we just play our game. And off that, we start building momentum.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time we got into June, we went off on this crazy little stretch where we started playing really good baseball. I remember there was a quote from one of the Angels players, they were complaining about their interleague schedule vs. ours. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I remember thinking, \u2018We got \u2018em.\u2019 If they\u2019re worried about that stuff, that we\u2019re playing Pittsburgh or whoever we were playing against, no disrespect to the Pirates, but if we\u2019re playing those guys and [the Angels] are worried about that? The tables have turned. We got them now.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when things really started to build. Again, then we got Cliff. Then we finished strong, leading up to that Alex [Rodriguez] moment where Neftali Feliz punches him out. But to me, it started much earlier than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch the full podcast episode here.<\/a><\/p>\n

When did Michael Young know the 2010-11 Texas Rangers were special?<\/p>\n

\"Video<\/p>\n

Young appeared on The Dallas Morning News’ new SportsDay Rangers podcast with longtime beat writer Evan Grant and Rangers senior advisor John Blake.<\/p>\n

Twitter: @coylio33<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>Why Texas, along with Rangers-Astros rivalry, is integral to history, future of baseball<\/a><\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s Lone Star rivalry series \u2014 the first meeting of the Rangers and Astros this season \u2014 will feature a combined six native Texans.<\/p>\n

\"Texas<\/a>\u2018Confident, more relaxed\u2019 Jake Burger debuts in Rangers-Astros rivalry with clutch homer<\/a><\/p>\n

Burger is 5-for-12 since he rejoined the Rangers after a 10-day reset at Triple-A Round Rock.<\/p>\n

\"Texas<\/a>Rangers manager Bruce Bochy passes Sparky Anderson for No. 6 on MLB\u2019s all-time wins list<\/a><\/p>\n

Bochy won his 2,195th game on Thursday night against the Astros.<\/p>\n

Find more Rangers coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Click or tap here to sign up for our Rangers newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019re approaching the 15th anniversary of the Texas Rangers\u2019 first-ever American League pennant and World Series berth, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2393],"tags":[5,4,5790,149,1567,69,3240],"class_list":{"0":"post-31410","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas-rangers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-podcasts","11":"tag-rangers","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-texas-rangers","14":"tag-texasrangers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114517790196284260","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}