As the calendar turns to July, Texas is 41-44 and 9.5 games behind the Houston Astros in the American League West.
ARLINGTON, Texas — The Texas Rangers lost in extra innings. Have you heard?
No, not Friday night – they dropped that one, 7-6, to the Mariners in 12 frames. And no, not Sunday afternoon – Seattle took that one, 6-4, also in 12.
This time around, on Monday at Globe Life Field, Texas clawed back against the Orioles, again forcing extra innings before their fatigued bullpen gave up a pair of homers in the 10th. Then Adolis Garcia – remember that guy? – swatted a three-run homer to tie the game in the bottom half of the inning.
Somehow, the Rangers still lost by four runs.
This team might not be very good, but they’re getting better at inventing ways to lose. The streak of four straight extra-inning games tied a club record from 2002, according to MLB.com. So there’s that.
Earlier in this mess of a season, Texas frequently lost without a pulse. Great pitching, no offense, in and out in two-plus hours. Now they’re getting creative.
The reality, though, as the calendar turns to July, is that Texas is 41-44 and 9.5 games behind the Houston Astros in the American League West. Which is mostly an irrelevant note on the standings. They’re never catching Astros. The only thing keeping this season alive is the American League Wild Card race, where Texas currently sits 3.5 games behind the Mariners, with a few teams between the two squads.
Not exactly a promising situation.
What’s worse is that it feels like full-fledged delusion to think the Rangers even have a chance.
Wyatt Langford, Jake Burger and Joc Pederson are hurt, and the latter two – the Rangers’ top offseason acquisitions – haven’t been good (although Burger was improving). Texas’ two catchers, Jonah Heim and Kyle Higashioka are two of the worst hitters in baseball, which has become too familiar of a distinction for Heim. Adolis Garcia and Josh Jung can’t hit much of anything, despite their best efforts to swing at everything. Corey Seager and Marcus Semien have heated up, but likely too late.
On the pitching side, Jacob deGrom looks like a Cy Young winner – and he’s healthy, too. But Nathan Eovaldi has battled injury (and got shelled upon his return), and now Tyler Mahle isn’t expected back until after the trade deadline.
But the recent pitching injuries and taxed bullpen and season-long slumps only mask the bigger problem: This team just isn’t very good at winning games. Over the four straight extra-inning games (one of which they won on Saturday), the Rangers were a combined 10-for-50 with runners in scoring position. They’ve had chances. They’ve shown more life with the bats. They’ve squandered most of it.
Perhaps no team entered this season more equipped to win and less able to actually do it.
The larger frustration is that the Rangers can’t seem to change from what they’ve always been. If their current pace holds, 2025 will mark Texas’ eighth losing season in their last nine. We know what happened in 2023, the lone exception there, when the Rangers sent half their lineup to the All-Star Game, when Garcia and Jung knew how to hit, when Heim wasn’t the worst hitter in baseball, when a club that spent the previous 50 years wandering the baseball desert managed to make the clutch moments look like destiny.
Actually, maybe we had no idea what happened in 2023.