The Texas Rangers swept the Colorado Rockies to open their week. The Rockies are the laughingstock of baseball. They still have single digit wins. The Rangers barely won the first game after only posting two runs. The second game was not much better, but again the Rangers cashed in on the Colorado Clownshow. On Wednesday they finally posted a decent run total. The 8-3 victory did little to inspire confidence as the hated Houston Astros came to town.
The Thursday opener was one of the best pitchers duels in recent memory. Hunter Brown and Jacob deGrom were both untouchable. Jake Burger, fresh up from AAA, tagged Brown for a solo homer in the 6th. The blast was the lone run of the game. Adolis Garcia played great defense in this game. Jake blistered the Astros with his fastball/slider combo. He got ahead in counts. He kept his slider down and away. He was truly lethal. Shawn Armstrong got the save. Win 1-0.
Game two of the series saw the Rangers fritter away their pathetic lead in a way Jake prevented them from doing in the opener. Jake went 8 strong in that game. 5.2 IP of scoreless ball is not enough for the Rangers this season. That was the line Nate Eovaldi posted in this game. Yet again, the Rangers got spectacular starting pitching. If you omit Kumar Rocker’s putrid starts, the Rangers have the best rotation in the AL this year. The offense has been so awful that they waste this tremendous advantage. Struggling to collect some free wins from the Rockies should not bring anyone confidence.
The Rangers bullpen was again asked to be perfect, just like the starters they were relieving. They failed this impossible task. The 2-0 play pretend advantage was blasted away by the Astros in a nightmarish six run 7th inning. Chris Martin was unavailable in this game due to a sore forearm. The bullpen use, which some fans panned in this game, has been spectacular. Bochy has strung together scoreless frames from a cadre of second tier arms. The bullpen cannot be asked to hold 2-0 leads every night. The starting pitchers cannot be expected to put them in position to do so either. Expecting your pitchers to throw shutouts every night because worthless Marcus Semien has not woken up yet is absurd. Oh yeah, Corey Seager is hurt again. His return to the IL is as predictable as the offensive shutdown that correlates with it. Loss 6-3.
Wyatt Langford posted two RBI in support of Tyler Mahle in the third game of the series. Joc Pederson hit a homer in this game. He was brought in to provide power to the lineup and has instead provided comedy. Pederson and Semien showed signs of life in this series. This development will be treated with the same dismissal Semien applies to his offseason preparation. This team has improved since Bret Boone became hitting coach. They are still playing far below their peak rank. Their offensive approach is still flawed and sloppy. Eventually the pitching will normalize a bit and the shutouts will stop. If the Rangers offense continues to wallow during that event, the season will end quickly.
The Rangers have been vexing even in their victories this season. They could be running away with the division, but instead they are foolishly treading water as Marcus Semien cashes his checks. The pitching carried the team to another victory in this game, 5-1.
The final game of the series was essentially a carbon copy of the grotesque second game. After relentlessly laying waste to the Astros lineup, the Rangers starter was lifted after their offense did nothing. Despite the top four hitters in the Rangers lineup all posting a hit, the Rangers still only posted three runs. There are always at least three insane blackholes in the Rangers lineup. Kevin Pillar, who could never hit, is being started with regularity this year. Some of that is because Evan Carter can neither hit nor stay healthy. Some of it is Leody Taveras is a joke player that never developed. The biggest reason is because he was hitting .300 for the first two weeks of the season. He has regressed back to an automatic out. He went 0-4 in this game to drop his OPS to .476.
Ezequiel Duran showed flashes of brilliance at the plate in 2023. This made up for the fact he does not even really have a position. This season he has an OPS+ of -3. Yes, negative three. 100 is always average, higher is better. Duran was dominated in the final at bat of this game. He cried to the ump like a sore loser after a strike call that was obviously a strike. Duran can hear the clock ticking. He was already sent to AAA once this season and has done little to prove his worth. The Rangers failed to show signs of life after the 4th inning. They have failed to show signs of life offensively all season.
The Rangers are a team in ruin. They are a hilariously flawed squad trying to win 1-0 every night. The fact that their record is decent shows just how incredible the pitching has really been. Adolis Garcia strikes out too much. Marcus Semien and Joc Pederson are still asleep. Until they get their averages above .200 their 0-2, two walk performances will be ignored.
Wyatt Langford, Josh Jung, and Josh Smith are playing well. The Rangers are still exhibiting a plethora of severe offensive problems. Boone taking over has helped a little, but has not solved the problem. The odious, lethal rot still lurks just beneath the surface. The Rangers are winning games with smoke and mirrors at the moment. Anyone who agonizes over Bochy’s bullpen decisions is childish. The bullpen is not going to hold a 2-0 lead for four innings every night. It is simply too much to ask out of any bullpen. The crux of the issue is the offense. Half the hitters on any given night are making fools of themselves.
Every game in baseball matters. If the Rangers end up missing the playoffs by one game, the casual fan will surely cite some loss that occurred in the final week of the season. In reality the Rangers season was lost in April and May when they spent fifty games screwing around. The Rangers offense is an entity that shows up to work every night ready to disappoint. The fact that the pitching has been incredible enough to lead them to a winning 25-23 record should make one vexed, not elated.
The Rangers FINALLY got some decent pitching and they threw it away day after day watching “slow starter” Marcus Semien run through the motions. Semien’s ability to stay in the lineup makes a lot more sense when one considers how little prep he puts in off the field. In the same way that players like Shaq would “use the regular season to play into shape,” Marcus is using the torrid, blistering starts of Tyler Mahle and Jacob deGrom to get into playing shape. You know, just gettin a little loosey goosey! That’s lazy Marcus Semien for you: he watches legends who struggle with injury put it all on the line night after night while he tepidly looks to get things going in July. Who knows how many masterpieces are left in the fragile arms of deGrom and Mahle? Semien can be reliably penciled into the lineup to see firsthand that as many of them go to waste as possible! Will there even be anything left to compete for in July when Marcus Semien finally starts to hit? There was not last year, but Semien’s check still cleared so he does not care.
The casual fan is utterly unaware of the injustice taking place on a nightly basis. The Rangers might be a team a tick over .500 on paper, but they are a hollow, top heavy hallucination.
“You realize those void rays were halluc-” Chris “Huk” Loranger
The Rangers were two gross chokes away from sweeping both their series. The hitting did not get much better. Seager and Carter both went down with injuries. Chris Martin was dinged up too. When you win 2-0 and 1-0 because half your lineup are playing like selfish morons it only takes one or two pieces going down for everything to be torn asunder. Mahle, deGrom, and Eovaldi having their incredible efforts squandered is almost more vexing than watching the Rangers get demolished. The pitchers are really putting it all out there and getting let down by their useless teammates. Adolis Garcia only cares about hitting homers. Pillar cannot hit and never could. Semien is checked out. Pederson is a joke player. No, the fact that both of them sort of showed signs of life this last week does not change this. Seager cannot stay healthy. Neither can Carter. Heim is starting to be overworked again. Jake Burger is still no Nate Lowe. Essentially nothing has changed since last week.
The Rangers are a horribly broken team being carried in an unsustainable way by great pitching. They will travel to Yankee Stadium to face the New York Yankees next.
Upcoming Schedule – All Times Central
5/20 @Yankees – 6:05 p.m.
5/21 @Yankees – 6:05 p.m.
5/22 @Yankees – 11:35 a.m.
5/23 @White Sox – 6:40 p.m.
5/24 @White Sox – 3:10 p.m.
5/25 @White Sox – 1:10 p.m.
