ARLINGTON — They’re back in the game.
Kind of.
OK, to be more accurate, the Texas Rangers have … prevented themselves from being entirely out of the game? Let’s go with that. Their three-game series sweep of the Cleveland Guardians at the very least gave the Rangers “more life” in the words of designated hitter Joc Pederson.
They climbed one spot in the American League Wild Card hunt but are still four-and-a-half games back of the Seattle Mariners (who own the third and final berth) and one-and-a-half games back of the Kansas City Royals (who are the only team between the two) with exactly 30 games left to play in the regular season.
Rangers
It’s not impossible.
It just means there’s work to do.
Quite a bit of it.
Here are five other things we learned in the week that was.
Your weekly playoff status check
We have good news and bad news.
The good news: The team’s percent chance to make the playoffs, per FanGraphs’ model, did not drastically change after a week in which they won one more game than they lost against two hopeful contenders.
Related:Rangers need to handle business in playoff fight. A Guardians sweep was a strong start
The bad news: It didn’t exactly improve. The Rangers had an 11.7% chance to qualify for the postseason on Aug. 17 after their series loss to the Toronto Blue Jays. Sunday, after a sweep of the Guardians, it sat at an even 11%.
They did leapfrog the Guardians, who now have just a 4.8% chance to play October baseball, but remain a ways away from the Seattle Mariners and their 89.7% odds. The Rangers were able to do themselves a favor and knock the Guardians down a peg themselves; they failed to do so this season against the Mariners and won’t have another chance to with the season series complete.
The Rangers will need to beat the odds to return to the playoffs.
That’s kind of par for the course for this campaign.
The Summer I Turned Rowdy
Among batters who’ve played in 25 games for the Rangers this season — which, admittedly, is a very selective sample size — there are exactly two with an .800 OPS or better.
Shortstop Corey Seager, naturally, with an .842 OPS.
And first baseman Rowdy Tellez, also naturally, with an .886 OPS.
The Rangers signed Tellez to a minor league contract July 4 with the belief that his track record vs. right-handed pitchers and road splits away from Seattle’s T-Mobile Park, where he began the season, could offer something of value to a wayward offense.
So far so good. Tellez, who’s operated as a high-caliber platoon player with Jake Burger (wrist) sidelined, has been one of the team’s best statistical hitters since he debuted July 18 vs. the Detroit Tigers.
He hit home runs in back-to-back games vs. the Guardians on Saturday and Sunday and has anchored a first base platoon that’s been one of baseball’s most productive in the season’s second half. Rangers first baseman — a group which primarily includes Burger, Tellez and infielder Ezequiel Duran — have combined for a 134 wRC+ (fifth-best in baseball), .835 OPS (eighth-best in baseball) and 0.9 WAR (ninth-best, according to FanGraphs) since Tellez debuted.
“He’s loud,” designated hitter Joc Pederson said of Tellez. “I think he lightens up the clubhouse a bit. He’s hitting home runs and driving in runs which is also on field and really cool. I think he’s been huge in the clubhouse to lighten some things up … I think we needed a boost.”
Speaking of much-needed boosts
Pederson, whose first-half struggles were incredibly well-documented, has been one of the club’s best hitters since the trade deadline.
The 33-year-old has slashed .269/.345/.538 with 4 home runs in 20 games through August. It’s been his single most productive month since the club signed him to a two-year deal this past winter. His numbers have not been of the empty calorie variety either.
Pederson hit a game-tying home run in the ninth inning vs. the New York Yankees on Aug. 4. He walked off the Guardians with a ninth-inning single in Friday’s win. On Sunday, to pad the Texas lead, Pederson recorded his first hit vs. a left-handed pitcher with a seventh-inning home run vs. Erik Swabroski.
This fact of the matter remains: If Pederson, who owns a career .800 OPS, can be anything close to his average self the remainder of the season, it presents a massive boost to a Rangers offense that needs to be at its best for a stretch run.
Let’s have the leadoff conversation
It’s time for a batting order discussion.
Ah, yes, the manager’s favorite.
“I go through a lot of lineups,” Bruce Bochy said Sunday morning. “I promise you.”
He’s tweaked it a lot, too. The Rangers hit super utility man Josh Smith at leadoff three times in the last week. They hit outfielder Wyatt Langford at leadoff three times in the last week.
The results favored the latter. Langford had four hits — including two doubles and a home run — and four walks in his three starts at leadoff. Smith, whose production has cratered in the second half, went 1 for 11 in his three starts at leadoff.
A one-week sample size is hardly enough to make a grand judgement of lineup construction. The trends, however, may be. Langford has slashed .284/.418/.527 with 4 home runs in August. Smith has slashed .189/.250/.243 in that same window. Langford owns an .893 OPS in six games at leadoff this season. Smith has a .715 OPS in 72 games at leadoff this season.
Bochy hit Smith leadoff Sunday, partly because of Cleveland right-hander Gavin Williams’ reverse splits, partly because the Rangers “need to get [Smith] going” with the belief that his makeup and abilities profile well at the top of the lineup.
That’s not inaccurate. It’s just a matter of how much runway the Rangers can afford a player to bust a slump in a key part of the order during a critical stretch of the year.
We’ve seen this before, haven’t we?
The Rangers lost Seager for a month in the first half of their championship season due to a strained hamstring and hardly missed a beat because Duran stepped in, played the best baseball of his major league career and posted a .974 OPS from May 1-June 30s, 2023.
So, with second baseman Marcus Semien potentially out for the remainder of this year with a fracture and a sprain in his left foot, can’t the Rangers just run the same play that they did two seasons ago?
Duran’s entire body of work since that run — specifically a .597 OPS in 210 games — say one thing. His recent play might say another.
The 26-year-old has slashed .378/.404/.467 in 15 games this month while he’s filled in at second base, first base and in the outfield. It’s been his best run of play since he served as Seager’s fill-in more than two years ago and it’s earned him runway as the Rangers make a playoff push.
It’s likely that the Rangers will fill Semien’s spot with some platoon of Duran, rookie Cody Freeman and Smith for the rest of this season. They’d also intended to rotate players at shortstop two years ago when Seager went down, too, before Duran surged and claimed an effective every-day role.
Hey may, at the very least, have the opportunity to try and do so again.
Monday’s TV/Radio listings (Aug. 25)Rangers need to handle business in playoff fight. A Guardians sweep was a strong start
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