SEATTLE — Texas catcher Mike Napoli had a scheduled day off Wednesday with Yorvit Torrealba catching.
It couldn't have come at a better time as Napoli is mired in a 3 for 22 slide that's included 14 strikeouts and seen his average fall to .235.
He went 0 for 3 in Tuesday's game with three strikeouts.
"I'm not comfortable obviously," Napoli said. "I'm going to keep grinding and going until I figure it out. I'm not quitting or anything. I'm going to keep going at it. I'm going to try and give a tough at-bat every time."
Hot and cold streaks are nothing new for Napoli. Last season he was batting just .183 on May 27 and was hitting .221 when he went on the disabled list in June. He ended the season with career highs in homers and RBIs while batting .383 after the All-Star break.
"Usually it's just something happens," he said. "A couple of ABs I feel good and build off that. Right now I get in there and sometimes I feel good and sometimes I don't. More times I don't but it's just battling through it. I'm trying to stay positive."
Napoli said what's helped him stay sane through his slump is that he's doing the job behind the plate working with the pitchers. He said he's not worried about his hitting coming around and neither is manager Ron Washington.
"Napoli had a good April and he's struggled in the month of May," Washington said. "He has a good track record. When you're not doing one thing you've got to do the other. Maybe he's not swinging the bat but he's certainly doing a good job with our pitching staff. There are a lot of parts to the game he can play and when one of them is not working he can play the other one. He's doing a good job at that."
20 in 20
Wednesday's game against Seattle wrapped up a 20 game in 20-day stretch for the Rangers that included a doubleheader as well as a long night because of a rain delay followed by a day game.
The Rangers also played without Josh Hamilton and Adrian Beltre for a time in the stretch. Despite all of that, the Rangers went into Wednesday's game 10 games over .500, just like they were when the road trip started in Toronto April 30.
"And they're still standing," Washington said. "I enjoyed knowing we were playing every day. I still like to play baseball every day."
The team gets a little break now. For the next two months, the club won't have a stretch of more than 10 games without an off day.
