SEATTLE – The Rangers lost a game critical to their playoff chances Friday night on a two-run walk-off home run by J.P. Crawford.
On it, but not because of it.
They lost, 4-3 to Seattle, because of the same reason they’ve lost so many times this season. They lost because their offense is more a concept than a reality. And they didn’t do anything to address it at the trade deadline, possibly because a single right-handed bat wasn’t going to change the arc of the offense by itself. Though on Friday, it sure would have been nice to at least have another option.
Related:Why didn’t Rangers add a bat at trade deadline? Chris Young explains belief in offense
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Anyway before diving back into that: After the Rangers’ two new bullpen acquisitions, Danny Coulombe and Phil Maton, deftly protected a one-run lead in the seventh and eighth, left-handed closer Robert Garcia couldn’t retire a couple of lefties in the ninth. Dominic Canzone lined a single to right on a fastball inside. Three pitches later, J.P. Crawford, hit a fastball on the inside corner into the right field seats to send the crowd of 40,984 into hysterics even before Fireworks Night officially started.
It was the Rangers fifth consecutive loss in Seattle this season and their 11th in 12 games at T-Mobile Park since the start of 2024. It dropped the Rangers two games behind Seattle in the AL wild card race, which might as well be three since the Mariners’ own the tiebreaker over the Rangers.
Now, about the loss: Same old song and dance. Mostly the same quotes, too.
“There’s nothing you can do now; it’s over,” manager Bruce Bochy said of the game. “You come back tomorrow and you play the game. You have to take some blows. We have. We have to bounce back. They bounce back very well. We just have to come out and try to win a ball game tomorrow. That’s all you can do. You have no choice.”
The Rangers offense awoke for a three-run third inning, which matched their high game for any of the previous four this season. A job well done. They went back into hibernation. They have scored in one inning in the first 18 innings of this critical series and are 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position across the other 17. Story of their season.
“Well, I don’t know if it’s the story of this offense,” manager Bruce Bochy contended. “At times, yeah. But we’ve been doing a much better job here. We were facing a guy who has been very tough on us. We had a good inning. We would have liked to tack on. We had a chance to tack on. But when you go against their guys, you figure it’s going to be a low-scoring game.”
The Rangers did have chances to tack on against Logan Gilbert and then against the bullpen. And all it would have taken was a fly ball. But they couldn’t manage it. In the fourth, after back-to-back one-out singles by Wyatt Langford and Joc Pederson, Rowdy Tellez, who had doubled an inning earlier, struck out on filthy splitters and sliders. Then Jonah Heim did the same.
In the seventh, with the Mariners using a lefty, the Rangers sent instigator Sam Haggery to the plate to start things off. He responded with a double. Then, to replace Tellez, the Rangers turned around and found … Ezequiel Duran? It was the best they could do for a right-handed hitter. Josh Jung was still unavailable with a sore calf. They apparently didn’t want to use Kyle Higashioka because they’d have no catcher. So Duran, batting .114 against lefties, got the at-bat. Actually moved the runner, too. But the rally died.
Heim, who is hitting .200 against lefties, missed a high fastball, had one on the extreme outside edge called a strike and then couldn’t stop himself swinging at a slider in the dirt. The inning ended on a Josh Smith grounder.
“I really don’t know what to say,” Heim said. “I missed a pitch that I should have hit and then I chased. You’d think I’d make an adjustment one of these times. But I simply didn’t get the job done.”
So the Rangers’ best hope to hold on to a critical win was for the bullpen to be perfect. Hard line to walk in a pennant race. Coulombe and Maton danced through the eighth and the lineup turned to a lefty-heavy pocket for the ninth, seemingly lining up perfectly for Garcia. That’s when things went further awry.
“It sucks,” Garcia said as fancy fireworks exploded over the sky outside the Rangers’ clubhouse. “You go home and be mad. But it’s over and tomorrow you come out and try to win. It sucks. But sometimes you have to be a man.”
True. And sometimes you also have to hit.
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