The Texas Rangers went without a share of first place for two whole days for seemingly the first time all season to begin this week. That had to bring back memories of the 2012 season, which they also led the West for the entire season, before being swept by the surprising Oakland A’s on the road to close out the year. Oakland won the West, and Texas was relegated to the first-ever AL wild card game–which it lost to the Baltimore Orioles.
The difference between this year’s squad and that one is that the Rangers are currently ascending, and this is their first go-around back in the postseason picture. Back in 2012, they had just made two straight World Series, which they ultimately lost.
After Oakland defeated the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday night, 3-1, the Rangers find themselves in a three-way tie for the lead in the AL West. The Mariners–despite their loss on Tuesday–are surging. The Astros are a proven commodity after making it to the ALCS six straight seasons and winning two World Series in that time.
Over the next month we get to find out what this Rangers team is about, but for now, let’s take a look at why they’re struggling.
Related: Texas Rangers standing in Sportsnaut’s MLB power rankings
No Josh Jung, big worries
The Texas Rangers began the month of August by winning eight straight after acquiring Max Scherzer at the MLB trade deadline. Then, rookie third baseman Josh Jung was placed on the IL with a fractured thumb on August 7. Texas held a three-game lead over the Houston Astros in the AL West on August 8, the final day of its eight-game win streak, and a 6.5 game lead over Seattle.
Since the streak ended and Jung was placed on the injured list, they have gone 7-11, which includes an eight-game losing streak in the middle of the month. They have won three of four, including the middle game of the series loss to the Minnesota Twins, and the first two in a three-game series against the New York Mets in Queens. It’s hard to look at the timing of the losing streak and not come to the conclusion that the lack of Jung at third base has led to this run.
The team offense has taken a dip during this run, going from the second-best in baseball in wRC+ at 119 (100 is league average) to 97, which ranks 14th in baseball over the past two weeks. The offense has still been decent, but just not at the level that they’d been previously. Yet, it’s not the fault of Jung’s replacement, Ezequiel Durán.
Since taking over third base on a consistent basis on August 14, he’s 13-for-46 and has a .362 OBP in that span. His wRC+ is 129, or 29% above league average. Jung held a 119 wRC+ when he landed on the IL, so the offense in general has been better from the position in a small sample size. Durán collected just his second RBI in the past two weeks on Tuesday, and with 22 homers and 67 RBI, Jung was important to the lineup as a run producer. Durán has been more of a “keep the line moving” bat. He has 14 homers this season, but none in the past two weeks.
The defense Durán has provided at the hot corner hasn’t been as good as Jung’s, but you can’t blame the replacement third baseman for the offense’s struggles.
Where is Texas Rangers star Adolis García?
Outside of some of the free agent signings that the Rangers have made (Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Jacob deGrom) and the addition of Scherzer, Adolis García is probably the most recognizable name on the roster to non-Rangers fans, and for good reason. Since his first full season in 2021, García has mashed 90 home runs (and counting), been named to two All Star games, and participated in the Home Run Derby just last month in Seattle.
On the season García has been the Rangers’ second-best bat behind the otherworldly Corey Seager, posting a 135 wRC+ from the beginning of the season until August 7. From the 8th on, García has posted a 43 wRC+ (57% below league average), going 10-for-71 (.140) with three homers and 31 strikeouts. On the season he’d been striking out at a 25% clip, but with Jung out of the lineup, that’s up to 44% of the time.
So yes, the offense has taken a bit of a dip over the last couple of weeks, but it’s not for the reason that you may have been thinking. There’s also one other bit of intel that may make Rangers fans a little worried as the playoffs approach.
Struggling bullpen becoming focal point
The Rangers bullpen hasn’t been great all season. Before Jung’s injury, they ranked 26th in ERA as a group with a 4.64, more than a half-run higher than even league average bullpens and a full run worse than Seattle’s second-best ‘pen. From August 8th on they’ve actually improved their ranking, up to 20th, but their effectiveness has been even worse, coming in with a 5.15 ERA.
You add an offense that isn’t quite hitting on all cylinders like it has been all season, and all of the sudden some of the team’s blemishes are on full display. This has left an opening for the Seattle Mariners to insert themselves into the AL West race and make things really interesting in the AL playoff picture down the stretch.
The most worrisome stat for Rangers fans this season has to be the number of wins that have been left on the table. Texas as a team has 25 saves. They also have 25 blown saves, which is the second-most in baseball, tied with the Minnesota Twins, and ahead of just the Colorado Rockies and Chicago White Sox. Not exactly the company you want to be keeping if a World Series title is your goal. Obviously, a team can blow a save opportunity in the seventh and still win the game, but that puts more pressure on the offense to continue scoring runs at all times, and right now they aren’t.
In the three wins Texas has in their last four, they have allowed a total of six runs and two of those wins have come in one-run games.
Will Smith has blown two save opportunities since August 13 and has allowed 10 runs on 11 hits in 9.2 innings this month. He was used in the eighth inning on Tuesday night against the Mets and tossed a perfect inning before giving way to Aroldis Chapman, who gave up a run but still earned the save. Longtime Texas reliever José Leclerc earned the save on Monday.
Turnaround could be coming for the Texas Rangers
While the bullpen has been a weak spot all season, the Rangers are still in a three-way tie for the third best record in the American League, though they could have the fifth-best record with a loss and wins by the Astros and Mariners on Wednesday. Things are close, and whomever wins the West will get a first round bye, while one team could face the Tampa Bay Rays on the road, and the other would face the Twins, also on the road. This next month is going to be big for how the entire AL bracket plays out in October.
One reason things could turn around for Texas is that Nathan Eovaldi seems to be close to returning to the mound sometime in September, though he did feel a little tightness in his side after a weekend bullpen session. Eovaldi has been on the IL for the past month, but holds an 11-3 record and a 2.69 ERA with a 1.01 WHIP this season. Getting him back soon would be great, but making sure that he’s as close to that version of himself as possible is more important for an October run.
Jonah Heim was activated from the IL on August 13. The All Star was hitting .280 with a .337 OBP on the year when he went down, and it has taken him a couple of weeks to get his timing back. For the month he’s batting just .143 (5-for-35) with a .211 on-base. Throw that line in on top of the one produced by García, and you can again see why the Rangers have been struggling.
On Sunday Heim hit a fourth inning grand slam against the Twins in the losing effort, and he followed that up with a 2-for-3 game that included a walk on Monday night. He’s 3-for-his-last-11, and looks to be slowly turning the corner.
Texas wraps up their series with the Mets on Wednesday and will call it a month with an off-day on Thursday before welcoming the Twins to Arlington for a weekend series. They then welcome the Houston Astros for three games to begin next week, which could be a good litmus test for this team heading into October.
If the Rangers don’t turn things around in either of those series, they could be looking at the September 11-14 series in Toronto against the Blue Jays as one that they need to cling to their wild-card spot rather than solidifying their place atop the West. The Jays are currently 3.5 games back of the third wild card spot.