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The Texas Rangers find themselves further out of first place at this point in the season than any team in the history of baseball, except the 1953 Detroit Tigers. The Rangers’ record is a putrid 23-43, while the Seattle Mariners are 52-14. The cosmic beauty of this, of course, is that Alex Rodriguez shunned the Mariners in the offseason to sign a record-setting $252 million contract with the Rangers.

Pay-Rod isn’t the reason the Rangers are struggling; in fact he’s off to a fine start (.320, 19 HR, 57 RBI). Texas’ woes can be summarized in three words: pitching, pitching, pitching. A staff ERA of 6.01, starting pitchers whose ERAs resemble Boeing airplanes, and a leaky bullpen illustrate the folly of Texas owner Tom Hicks’ spending plan. The Rangers’ offseason signings included graybeards such as Ken Caminiti, Andres Galarraga and Randy Velarde. Only Velarde has produced, but he’s been laid up with a hamstring injury.

Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell, in an excellent column a few weeks ago, opined that the Rangers struggles may have done the game a favor. The lesson is that nobody is worth the kind of money Rodriguez is making, no one player is bigger than a team when it comes to fiscal sanity.

Schadenfreude is the German word for “pleasure derived from the misfortune of others.” Mariners fans, the rest of baseball is sharing that warm feeling with you right now.