RANGERS WILL HIT REFRESH IN SPRING BY PUTTING 2015 IN PAST

There will be a moment early in spring training when the Texas Rangers gather as a group and put last season in the past.

All of 2015 – the slow start in April that could have derailed the entire season, the surprising AL West title and the mind-boggling, gut-punching end in the playoffs.

“We will shut the door on last year at some point when it’s appropriate,” manager Jeff Banister said. “I think the ability for all of our guys to shut the door on last year collectively is important so that we refresh just where we came from and what we went through, but also acknowledge this is a new year.”

A year when expectations certainly will be much different, at least externally.

Left-hander Cole Hamels will start this season in Texas after being a midseason addition last year and Yu Darvish is on track to return by late May or early June from Tommy John surgery that kept him out all last season. Plus, the bullpen has been strengthened even more and the everyday lineup is pretty much intact.

Banister, the AL Manager of the Year in his Rangers debut, said the team didn’t meet its goal “of winning the last game we get to play at the end of year.”

Texas got to Game 5 of the AL Division Series. They lost after that wild seventh inning in Toronto, with three consecutive errors before Jose Bautista’s tiebreaking three-run homer punctuated by his big bat flip.

Prince Fielder said Banister sets the tone, and did so last year before even managing his first game when Texas was coming off a 95-loss season.

How he kept the mood in the clubhouse and how he started it off in spring training, it’s hard to create that during the season,” Fielder said. “It’s a credit to how good a manager he is of getting us going in that mindset in spring training.”

Ranger’s pitchers and catchers have their first workout Friday, and the first full-squad workout is February 24 in Surprise, Arizona.