Nolan Ryan will be at the ballpark on Sunday afternoon. The Rangers are showing the documentary “Facing Nolan” on the big screen after the game, and Ryan will be in attendance at the game. If you’re over the age of about 35, you probably remember a time when Ryan was a borderline-deity in these parts. When he signed with Texas, it signaled a shift to relevance that the Rangers had lacked for the previous 16 years of their existence.

Raise your hand if you didn’t have this poster of Ryan in a duster, standing in an old west town, one baseball in his right hand and another loaded in the holster of his gun belt. It’s the perfect distillation of what he represented: a Texan, playing in Texas, a hard-nosed man right out of a Louis L’Amour novella, a human John Deere tractor with a war machine of an arm, out-willing the very decay of age to dominate a sport full of younger men.

He was Wyatt Earp, Clint Eastwood, Chuck Norris and John Wayne, all rolled into one. He was a bloody lip ignored, the winning side of a headlock, a breathing caricature of western grit, aplomb personified, with a slow Texas drawl.

When I was a child, Nolan Ryan could do no wrong. He was our hero, by any definition of the word.

Heroes are, of course, the stuff of storybooks. As an adult, I’ve heard the other side of the story — Ryan was a walking grudge, a bully on the mound, often throwing at hitters simply because he didn’t like something they did. As a front-office executive, he once again provided the Rangers with a certain credibility among players, but he was also well-known for questionable player-personnel decisions (remember Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt?) and a need to control everything from hot dogs to uniform designs. The friction ultimately led to his departure — back to Houston and the Astros front office.

This is not to suggest that Ryan’s sum total of contribution to the Rangers is in the negative column. Until and unless the team wins their first World Series, there may never be a more indelible Texas Rangers moment than his 5,000th strikeout. Unless it was the sixth no-hitter. Or the seventh. Or his 300th win (or the lip, or the headlock).

But Ryan, for all his efforts to transcend mortality, was still human. And maybe that’s all I’m getting at: a more honest and high-definition look will always expose imperfections, flaws… humanity. Humans, I am reminded once again, are never worthy of worship, even if they are worthy of deep admiration. Ryan himself defied nuance, but it caught up to him eventually. No human ever cracks the code to shed vulnerability altogether and become something more perfect.

Nolan got close, though. Closer than just about anyone I can think of.

We’d be remiss not to include an acknowledgment of Dane Dunning’s outing on Sunday. He lasted 7 2/3 innings against the Braves, allowing just one run on three hits. It was the second brilliant start by the Rangers’ rotation this week, after Martín Pérez went seven shutout innings against the Astros. But where Pérez was lifted after seven innings and just 76 pitches (causing all manner of uproar on Rangers twitter when the bullpen blew the lead), Dunning was allowed to work into the eighth inning.

After Pérez’s start, manager Chris Woodward justified the move two ways, both of them to do with arm health. First, the Rangers’ half of the seventh inning had been long — too long, in his opinion, to allow Pérez to return to the mound after having pitched seven innings already. Second, with the shortened spring, the Rangers had committed to being very judicious in their starting pitcher usage for the first month or so, even if it was an awkward time to make a pitching change.

To Woodward’s point, the Rangers did make it through the first month without any arm injuries. Jon Gray and Spencer Howard each had blisters that put them on the IL, and Gray’s second trip to the shelf was due to a slight knee sprain.

But after Dunning’s start, Woodward acknowledged that the “trial period” for starting pitcher usage was over, at least for those pitchers who had made all their starts:

“I made a promise to those guys,” Woodward said. “I talked to all the starters; I said, ‘Hey, we’ve done our part for the first month to hopefully protect you, hopefully get ahead of some things proactively to keep (you) safe. And now the leash is off.’ I kind of owed that to Dane from last year. I know I promised him that; I was really looking forward to seeing that come out tonight.”

The Rangers optioned Howard on Saturday, calling up outfielder Zach Reks to take his place for the time being. Woodward explained the move as an opportunity to allow Howard to get back into a starter’s routine and stretch back out to a full starter’s workload — something that was derailed early in the season when Howard developed a blister that put him on the 10-day IL. The absence limited his pitch count upon return, but that’s certainly not the only factor at play: Howard has pitched in three games this season, and in 6 1/3 innings, currently sports a 12.15 ERA and six home runs allowed.

If there’s an upside, it’s that his K/BB rate is 12/2, so it’s not a matter of issuing free passes. In his first inning on Friday night, Howard struck out the side in order. But it took him 23 pitches to do so. The numbers have been ugly, but perhaps a couple of starts in Triple A will help him get sorted out. Jon Gray will return to the rotation in Philadelphia.

But the Howard/Reks swap won’t be the last move this week. By the time the Rangers start their game in Philadelphia on Tuesday night, their active roster will have to be trimmed from 28 to 26. Woodward acknowledged that those moves are likely to happen (even if unofficially) on Sunday before the team flies northeast. After all, it doesn’t make much sense to fly a player to Philadelphia just to put them back on a flight to Round Rock.

Woodward wouldn’t discuss names when talking about the upcoming moves, so we won’t speculate here, but there are certainly a number of options, if basing the decision on early-season results.

OK, let’s get to it… is it time to worry about Marcus Semien and/or Mitch Garver? 

On one hand, the Rangers are only 21 games into the season. On the other, nearly 13 percent of the season isn’t an insignificant number. This certainly isn’t the start the Rangers hoped for out of two of their three major additions to the lineup. So what’s the level of concern?

“I think the concern I have is for them personally,” manager Chris Woodward said. “When you look at Semien, who puts so much effort into what he does every day, and he cares — I just want success for him, because first of all, he deserves it, and he’s always had it. He’s always been a better-as-he-goes type player. But this may be the first time he’s actually felt real pressure to perform.”

“Whenever you’re in a slump, there’s always urgency,” Semien said. “Nobody is comfortable not getting hits or not seeing the ball the way they want to see it. But I’ve had good starts. I’ve had bad starts. I know that at some point, something clicks. Last year for me, it was probably around early May, I just found myself … When you get out there in the game, you’re swinging at strikes, you’re hitting the ball hard and you’re taking the balls and (if) you’re doing that obviously you’re gonna be hot. So sometimes it takes a while.”

For Semien the last three years, a slow start hasn’t been abnormal. Compare Semien’s line through 21 games each of the last two seasons as compared to this season:

As for Garver, while he has struggled at the plate, his defense has improved, which is a silver lining.

“I feel like he has done well,” Woodward said of his catcher. “Especially on the catching side. He’s really built some trust with those pitchers, both in the bullpen and starters; he works his butt off. (Working) with Bobby Wilson, on the catching side, he’s improved a lot … He’s been open to some adjustments on the hitting side. Hopefully, it’s (going to be) a couple of good games in a row and (he) finds a little success, helps us win a game gets big hit, and it kind of snowballs after that, because he’s been successful (in the past).”

It’s too early to make any definitive statements about whether the acquisition of Garver was a good or bad idea — it has been 21 games, after all, and Garver’s track record suggests that he will pull out of the slump. But until he does, it’s going to be impossible not to look at the other players impacted by the decision. So how are they doing?

Isiah Kiner-Falefa is hitting .302/.333/.365 (.698 OPS) after the Twins flipped him to the Yankees, and Jose Trevino — made available by the acquisition of Garver — is hitting .208/.269/.250 (.519) as Kiner-Falefa’s teammate in the Bronx. Reasoned logic says that the Rangers lineup should be more potent with the acquisitions of Semien and Garver, even if neither is off to the start they’d like.

We’ll revisit the topic in a couple of months. In the meantime,

Let’s talk about Kole Calhoun, leadoff hitter…

Last week, we floated the idea of the Rangers putting one of their other left-handed bats in the leadoff spot, but it certainly raised a lot of eyebrows when manager Chris Woodward put Calhoun (not Nathaniel Lowe) in the leadoff spot against the Astros on Wednesday. At the time, Woodward’s explanation was that Calhoun’s numbers against Astros starter Cristian Javier were a contributing factor. That’s true: Calhoun entered the game 4-for-5 against Javier with two home runs. The move initially paid off: Calhoun went 2-for-2 against Javier with a strikeout and a fly ball to deep left field.

But the next night, Calhoun was back in the leadoff spot against Justin Verlander, against whom he entered the game with a 9-for-53 line (.170) and 27 strikeouts against just one walk. Calhoun went 0-for-4 in the game, including 0-for-3 with a couple of strikeouts against Verlander. To be fair, nobody really hit Verlander on Thursday, but Friday against the Braves and Ian Anderson (against whom Calhoun was 1-for-3 in his career), Calhoun was once again at the top of the lineup, going 0-for-3 before Nick Solak pinch-hit for him in the seventh inning.

It’s not as if Calhoun doesn’t have the experience in the spot — he has hit leadoff more often than he has hit in any other spot in the batting order over the course of his career — but after the three-game experiment, Woodward switched things up on Saturday with a new leadoff hitter: Nathaniel Lowe, who … went 0-for-3 with a walk.

I still maintain it’s a good idea.

If you see this patch on the grounds crew’s caps…

I noticed a black patch on Tony Beasley’s cap before Saturday’s game:

It turns out, the patch came from the grounds crew. It’s their way of honoring one of their own: Joe John Hernandez of Fort Worth, who passed away last August at the age of 40 from COVID-19. Hernandez was an avid softball player, and his team was known as the “Park Bums.” So if you’re at the park and see these patches on the caps of the grounds crew, now you know where they came from.

Do you remember Chris Woodward’s last big-league hit? Actually, you might have been there…

The discovery began, as many do in this line of work, with a question about a completely different topic. We were in Woodward’s office in Seattle talking about the 3-6 triple play that the Rangers had turned against the Mariners. Woodward shared a story about a triple play that happened when he was playing for Bobby Cox in Atlanta, and I tried to see if I could find the game. I did find it — it was Troy Tulowitzki’s unassisted triple play — but while on Woodward’s baseball-reference page, I got curious and looked up his last big-league hit.

Turns out, a few of us might have been watching.

The date was September 29, 2010, and the Rangers were en route to their first World Series appearance. The game ultimately ended in a bizarre fashion: with two outs in the ninth inning and the score tied at 5-5, Nelson Cruz swung and missed at a wild pitch for strike three. As the ball bounded away from catcher Guillermo Quiroz, Cruz lumbered to first base and Moreland sprinted toward second. When Quiroz’s throw went into right field, Moreland kept running, eventually sliding in safe to win the game. A walk-off wild pitch strikeout.

But in the sixth inning, with Quiroz on second base and the Mariners leading 4-1, a seemingly innocuous single — past shortstop Andres Blanco and into left field — ultimately proved to be Woodward’s final hit as a big-leaguer.

Woodward, for what it’s worth, wasn’t aware that was his last hit when I asked him on Sunday.

“I remember my last at-bat,” he laughed. “It was Chris Sale. It was tough.”

Informed that it happened here against Derek Holland, he laughed again.

“I wish I had known that,” he said. “I would have told him that every time I see him. I tell Orel Hershiser every time I see him. He was my first hit.”

Taveras went 2-for-4 with another home run (his fourth) on Saturday, extending his hitting streak to 12 games and putting his batting average at .376 with a 1.026 OPS.

And yet on Saturday, it was Reks, not Taveras, who got the call-up. The results were good — Reks went 1-for-3 with his first big-league hit and first big-league RBI — but Woodward was asked about why Reks got the call-up instead of the top prospect, and as part of his answer, he volunteered an indication that the coming roster moves might be more substantial than a simple option.

“It’s a good question,” Woodward said. “It could be a shorter stint (for Reks) or it could be a longer stint for him but shorter for somebody else. I’m just saying that because there’s been some guys not really performing. Just quite honestly, like — we’re in a situation now where we’ve got to maybe make changes but I think for him, we have the extra (roster spot) for two days. We basically have a little bit of an audition, I’m not saying if he gets three hits today, he’s for sure on but I like the player. I like the at-bat quality. I think Leody is gonna be here soon. I’m not going to tell you how soon, but we definitely are keeping an eye on him; I’m watching every game on my computer, watching the swings, the at-bat qualities, and he’ll be here at some point.”

One of my favorite things about buying old baseball card lots is looking up their bio on SABR.org — in Wally’s, I learned a couple of things that I thought were fascinating. One, he was once traded with one other player from the Pirates to the Cardinals for a four-player package that included Joe Garagiola. The other was that Westlake was one of the first beneficiaries of video analysis of his swing, and it happened in 1953! Check out this excerpt:

“Wally walked into the clubhouse prior to a night game, when a clubhouse boy informed him that Hank Greenberg wanted to see him. He expected the worst and walked into the room, only to see Greenberg, (Al) Lopez and a movie screen. ‘Sit down Wally. We would like to show you some films.’ The movies were of him in early July, when he was in a batting slump. The filming was requested by Greenberg and was done by the Cleveland Browns photographer. Westlake was unaware that he was being filmed. Greenberg, Lopez and Westlake critiqued the action on the screen and after thorough analysis; they determined that his swing was both too quick and too long. Their solution was for him to open up his stance.”

It worked, too — apparently Westlake broke out of his slump, thanks in part to the suggestions by Green and Lopez.

Also, I’m considering wrangling five wrappers and a quarter to see if “BASEBALL” will honor my request for a “game and bank”. I’ve only missed the deadline by 72 years and change.

“Sunday mornings, coffee with your friends before your French lessons / And me, I je ne sais pas, I’m still working on that passive aggression”

PUP (it’s an acronym, apparently, standing for “Pathetic Use of Potential”) is a Toronto-based band; their first record came out in 2013 (2014 in the U.S.) but they somehow flew under my radar until 2019’s “Morbid Stuff” which featured “Free At Last” — a song that is now firmly planted on my list of all-time favorites, and has a brilliant music video (it was also the second song I ever featured on a Weaver Wire). Their new album “THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND” (yes, it’s in all-caps) was released in January, and I believe the proper parlance for this song is that it riiiips.

Want to hear every song we’ve featured? There’s a playlist.

Here’s Taylor Hearn modeling the throwback uniforms the Rangers wore on Saturday. Elastic three-tone waistband in place of a belt? Check. Old glossy-style batting helmets? Check (though I would have loved to have seen an updated matte version). Classic block T on the hat? Check (I’ll make an exception to my almost-universal “no two-tone caps should be allowed” stance.

It’s a good look — maybe even my second-favorite Rangers uniform, behind the Nolan Ryan era kits with the script on the home whites, the simple block TEXAS on the road grays, and the simple one-tone blue cap with the block T [chef’s kiss].

(Photo: Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)