Time in Japan shaped Rangers’ Barnette

ARLINGTON — Rangers right-hander Tony Barnette is a believer that people are a product of their environment. For the better part of the last six years, his environment was Tokyo, Japan, as a closer for the Yakult Swallows of Nippon Professional Baseball.

Barnette, a 32-year-old rookie this season, called his time in Japan was a transformative process.

“Ages 26 to 32 — that’s pretty much half of my adult life in a foreign country,” Barnette said. “If I’m not going to change in that situation, I don’t know when I would. That’s a lot of time, and a pretty important time, in anybody’s development in life.”

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Barnette’s transformation has led him into a dominant middle-relief role for the American League West champion Rangers, who open their best-of-five American League Division Series against Toronto on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. CT on TBS in the United States and Sportsnet (English) and TVA (French) in Canada.

After a bit of a rocky start to the year, he ended with the eighth-best ERA (2.09) and fifth-most wins (seven) among AL relievers. Due to the language barrier Japan presents, Barnette had plenty of alone time to figure out the kind of person — and baseball player — he wanted to be.

“I spent a lot of time with headphones on,” Barnette said. “You spend a lot of time by yourself with self-coaching, with no friends and nobody to talk to. It’s one of those things you learn to deal with. You have a lot of time by yourself to reflect on your thoughts.”

Game Date Time Matchup TV Gm 1 Oct. 6 4:30 p.m. TOR @ TEX TBS/SN/TVA Gm 2 Oct. 7 1 p.m. TOR @ TEX TBS/SN/TVA Gm 3 Oct. 9 7:30 p.m. TEX @ …

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