Hamilton is Triple-Crown talk hot

ANAHEIM, Calif. – He's strong enough, fast enough, talented enough and, finally, healthy enough.

He's in the tougher league, but in a receptive ballpark. Wrong climate, but right lineup. Wrong era, but right time.

This is about the Triple Crown, given up for next-to impossible for decades.

And this is about Josh Hamilton(notes).

''No,'' he said.

Oh, yes.

''I never think about anything you all think about,'' he said.

Take away the foreboding title, the daunting legacy of Carl Yastrzemski, Frank Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig, the others. Take away the 43 years since Yaz dropped .326-44-121 on the American League.

Isn't it possible?

''Obviously,'' he said, ''I always have goals at the beginning of the season. I like to set them reasonably high for myself. If I fall a little short, I still had a pretty good season.''

That was as close as he'd get.

Only three months into his fourth season, and well into a monster June, Hamilton is batting .346. He has 18 home runs and 57 RBI. All three rank in the AL's top five. Maybe Miguel Cabrera(notes) beats him to it. Maybe, someday, Albert Pujols(notes) does. But maybe nobody does.

See, Hamilton is as whole as he can be.

Free of the rib and abdominal issues that killed almost half of last season, mechanically and emotionally sound again and living large on the barrel of his bat, Hamilton has ridden a 22-game hitting streak (batting .477 in those three weeks, and his 48 hits in June are the most by a Ranger in any month) into rekindled thoughts about what he can be. And what he can do.

There's no telling what turned Hamilton, though he's healthy again after missing so much for the Texas Rangers in 2009, and he's (presumably) a year removed from his last alcohol relapse, and he's fresher because he's playing left field and not the more rigorous center field, and he's using batting practice for game preparation, not as a launch site. (He said he'll skip next month's All-Star home run derby to further protect his stroke and his body.)

The trigger points he worked on last season with hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo have become instinctive under new hitting coach Clint Hurdle. The exaggerated toe tap is gone, maybe for good. His hands and weight are back. They're all part of feeling good again, and of getting regular work in the cage again, so he's starting to look like the hitter who was batting .310 with 21 home runs and 95 RBIs when he showed up at the 2008 All-Star Game.

''If you're going to change something,'' he said, ''you've got to be committed fully.''

Change, he's got down pat.

For one reason or another, Hamilton has seemed a fleeting figure in the game. From draft day 1999, the drug addiction that hounded him, the conditional reinstatement and the Rule 5 draft-and-trade, the comeback in Cincinnati, the trade to Texas, the coming-out home run derby at Yankee Stadium, the barroom photos and the injuries, he's routinely fallen in and out and back into the sport's consciousness.

At just 29, he's lived plenty, died some, and has kept coming. Through it all, he has carried skills that play to every corner of the baseball field, and in a 6-foot-4, 235-pound blend of strength and ease. There are good players and there are special players. Hamilton was going to be special, and so far he's been special occasionally.

And now here he is, another high-end half of a baseball season behind him, hoping he's learned something from the days that worked, sure he's carrying something from the nights that didn't.

''I think he's really comfortable with himself,'' Rangers GM Jon Daniels said. ''What he went through last year – the injuries, the other stuff – I think that's behind him.

''I don't know if he's the most talented guy in the game, but he's certainly in the conversation. Add in the mental approach, the preparation, and how he's beginning to understand the game, and I think that's what you're seeing right now.''

It certainly fits on a team that's threatening the Los Angeles Angels' recent domination of the AL West. Only the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox score more runs. Only the Tampa Bay Rays and Seattle Mariners have pitched better. Vladimir Guerrero(notes), who raised his batting helmet to applauding Angels fans Tuesday night at Angel Stadium, Michael Young(notes) and Nelson Cruz(notes), along with Hamilton, give the Rangers a bear of a lineup. The return of starter Tommy Hunter(notes) to go with Colby Lewis(notes) and C.J. Wilson(notes) and one of the league's better bullpens give the Rangers hope for their first division title since 1999.

Of course, none of this really matters unless the Rangers (nee Senators) can turn it into something unlike their previous 49 seasons, 48 of which ended either out of the postseason or without so much as a single postseason victory. They've qualified three times, won a single division series game once, and were swept twice, all of that coming more than a decade ago.

The rest has been kind of messy, some of it Texas-sized messy, and the sale of the club – from Tom Hicks to a group headed by Chuck Greenberg and Nolan Ryan – qualifies with the latter.

Because of recent bankruptcy filings and the fact the club is being propped up by as much as $30 million in MLB money, the Rangers could be shut out of any significant additions at the trading deadline (Roy Oswalt(notes), for example, could be deemed by baseball as unnecessarily extravagant).

''Would it be easier if we had a more traditional ownership situation? Yeah,'' Daniels said. ''Obviously it would. But we're not looking forward to a white [knight]. We like our club. I do think there'll be some opportunity to upgrade here or there.''

So, maybe, they're on their own, and the schedule gets slightly more demanding. The past three weeks fed them series against Seattle, Milwaukee, Florida, Houston (twice) and Pittsburgh before arriving in Anaheim. They do finish the first half with seven games against Cleveland and Baltimore, so the Rangers are likely to start the second half alone in first place for the first time in 11 years.

How it ends will depend on more of the same. More pitching, more runs and, yeah, more Hamilton. He can be that guy, three kinds of ways.

''I think he has to get a ton of luck,'' manager Ron Washington said of a Triple Crown. ''But I wouldn't put it past him. At this point of the year, to predict that, jeez. But, he certainly has the talent to do it.''

Hamilton smiled and waved his hand across the clubhouse, where he wanted to keep the conversation.

''It's all been coming together,'' he said, meaning all of them. ''Hopefully, we can keep it going.''