TORONTO — This is not the first Texas Rangers win with this profile. They’ve had this style of game scattered across their recent in-season history — be they impressive in quality or production — that have generated this question directed toward the manager ad nauseam:
Can a win like this jumpstart this team?
“You ask about it and we talk about it,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said earlier this week at Globe Life Field, “and then it doesn’t quite happen.”
We won’t ask again.
Rangers
We will inspect how this latest win came to be, though, because it may represent the team’s best and only path back toward certified contention.
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The Rangers beat the first-place Toronto Blue Jays 10-4 Sunday afternoon at the Rogers Centre to stave off a sweep and end what had been a four-game losing streak. The win, only their fifth this month, was anchored by the team’s stars.
Second baseman Marcus Semien finished with three hits and a home run one day after a sore wrist forced him to miss a rare game. Shortstop Corey Seager had two extra-base hits and scored twice to snap a multi-week skid. Right-handed starter Nathan Eovaldi fired seven innings of two-run ball to bounce back from his worst game of the season six days ago.
This, the Rangers understand, must be the blueprint.
“They’re the guys you lean on,” Bochy said Sunday. “For you to have success, they have to have success. As they go, we go. No doubt, from here on out, we’re going to need them doing their thing.”
Texas Rangers’ Marcus Semien runs the bases after hitting a two-run home run against the Toronto Blue Jays in second-inning baseball game action in Toronto, Sunday, Aug. 17, 2025. (Jon Blacker/The Canadian Press via AP)
Jon Blacker / AP
Semien, the team’s role model of work ethic, hit a two-run home run off of Toronto right-hander José Berríos in the second inning to give the Rangers a 2-0 lead and, after a fourth-inning double, scored on a single from first baseman Jake Burger to make it 3-1.
The 34-year-old was struck on the right wrist by a Chris Bassitt sinker in Friday’s loss and proceeded to hit a two-run home run five innings later. He did not play Saturday for just the second time this season after his swollen wrist inhibited his ability to swing a bat. He underwent X-rays, which showed no fracture, and estimated Sunday that he was at 70% health.
“I’m definitely not 100% but that’s why I play through stuff,” Semien said. “Sometimes you can do stuff when you’re not feeling your best.”
Semien has missed only five games in his four seasons with the Rangers. On July 26, vs. the Atlanta Braves, Semien was hit in the head by a fastball in the third inning but remained in the game to hit a walk-off single seven frames later.
“He’s so tough,” Bochy said. “He’s got to be, I’d say, one of the toughest — if not the toughest player — I’ve ever had.”
Said Seager: “It’s exactly what this team needs. To watch a guy of his stature and what he’s about, to take a ball on his hand and go out and perform, it’s something guys can definitely look up to.”
Seager, unquestionably the best hitter on the roster, entered play Sunday with a woeful .608 OPS since the July 31 trade deadline and a .193/.292/.316 slash line in his last 15 games as the team struggled to find an offensive spark.
He hit a solo home run off of Berríos in the fifth inning to give the Rangers a 6-1 lead. The 94.9-mph home run was the slowest he’d hit in four seasons with the team and might’ve been aided by a stadium in which balls flew Sunday afternoon.
Seager and the Rangers will take it nonetheless. He led the ninth inning off with a hard-hit double vs. right-hander Louis Varland and scored on a home run from outfielder Evan Carter two at-bats later that gave the Rangers double-digit runs.
“Both those guys led by example today, right?” Eovaldi said of the team’s half-a-billion-dollar middle infield. “They both had homers, they both had doubles.”
Eovaldi, the leader of the pitchers, shook off a poor start vs. the Arizona Diamondbacks and held the Blue Jays to a pair of solo home runs — one from catcher Alejandro Kirk in the second inning and another from first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the sixth — to card a quality start against the second-best offense in the American League.
Texas Rangers catcher Jonah Heim, left, visits Texas Rangers starting pitcher Nathan Eovaldi (17) on the mound during sixth-inning baseball action in Toronto, on Sunday, Aug. 17, 2025. (Jon Blacker/The Canadian Press via AP)
Jon Blacker / AP
He now has a 1.76 ERA in 123 innings this season and is two short of qualifier status. If he averages six innings per start in his next two expected appearances, he will qualify for the league’s ERA title after his Aug. 27 start vs. the Los Angeles Angels.
The Rangers may or may not remain in contention until then. Sunday’s win pulled them to within a game of a .500 record and to within seven-and-a-half games of the AL West-leading Houston Astros. In the Wild Card race, where their best bet to reach the postseason lies, they are five-and-a-half games out of the final spot and play both teams directly ahead of them (the Kansas City Royals and the Cleveland Guardians) this week.
A single win cannot erase their 5-11 record since the trade deadline. The continuation of the process that led to Sunday’s victory might be able to.
It might have to if the Rangers have a legitimate desire to play October baseball.
“I think it’s exactly what Evo did today,” Seager said when asked what role the team’s leaders play in this juncture of the year. “He went out, set the tone and threw a really good game. It’s exactly what we need in this moment. Obviously we’ve been struggling this last week and it’s not where we want to be, but to have a guy go out like that and stop the bleeding and put on a show or a performance like that, that’s exactly what this team needs.”
Twitter: @McFarland_Shawn
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