The Rangers know they can hit. What else is new?

It's the other aspects of the game that are the problems.

Pitching remains the issue, and it's largely responsible for why the club went a ninth consecutive year without a playoff berth in 2008. Despite scoring more than 900 runs for the season, the Rangers were still outscored by opponents. That explains a lot about why they finished with a losing record (79-83) for the eighth time in the last nine seasons.

Texas compiled a major league worst 5.36 ERA and for the second consecutive year failed to have a starting pitcher pitch at least 180 innings.

But pitching wasn't the only problem. The Rangers played sloppy defense all season. They made a major league-worst 132 errors, which led to a major league-worst 107 unearned runs.

Both problems surfaced at the start of the season to put the Rangers in a 7-16 hole barely three weeks into the season. It nearly led to the firing of Ron Washington.

The club rallied, however, by slugging teams into submission for most of the summer. The Rangers pulled within five games in the wild card race in early August, but key injuries to outfielder David Murphy (knee) and second baseman Ian Kinsler (sports hernia) robbed the lineup of two critical pieces.

It made the pitching shortcomings simply too much to overcome, as evidenced by an Aug. 12 game at Boston in which the Rangers fell behind by 12 runs, amazingly rallied to take a lead but eventually fell 19-17.

The Rangers go into the offseason knowing they need to significantly upgrade the pitching staff, but help is going to have to come internally. Club president Nolan Ryan said the team isn't likely to get involved with high-priced free agents. There is a wealth of minor league pitching talent in the organization, but most of it is at least a year away from being ready to contribute.

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