WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — With half a roster’s worth of movers and shakers stuck on the injured list, what more can these Texas Rangers stand to lose?
“You’ve got nothing to lose, really, at this point with everybody out,” shortstop Josh Smith said. “I think that’s how we’ve been playing.”
OK, that was a rhetorical question, but the response is apt.
They haven’t lost much.
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The Rangers completed their first road sweep this season with a 9-5 win against the Athletics at Sutter Health Park Sunday afternoon. They’ve won eight of their last nine games, moved to four games above .500 for the first time since Aug. 8, pulled themselves to within two-and-a-half games of the final American League Wild Card berth and shaved down what once seemed like a lost-cause deficit in their division.
They trail the first-place Houston Astros by just four-and-a-half games for the first time since Aug. 6. The two teams will play six times in the regular season’s final 24 games. Their August, in which Texas went 14-14 and thrived in the face of attrition, has suddenly made those two series and the rest of them infinitely more important as the postseason seems like a more realistic dream now than it was two weeks ago.
“There’s zero panic,” third baseman Josh Jung said. “It’s just fun to be apart of right now.”
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Looks like it. The Rangers have a plus-50 run differential in their last nine games. They’ve scored the second-most runs in baseball (69) and allowed the second-fewest (19) in that span despite the fact that eight players — including shortstop Corey Seager (appendicitis), second baseman Marcus Semien (foot) and right-hander Nathan Eovaldi (shoulder) — have been placed on the injured list in the last two weeks alone.
Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young conceded Friday that the adversity could potentially have a “freeing” effect on the club as external expectations may drop precipitously with each addition to the injured list.
“We’ve lost a lot in terms of the injuries,” Young told The Dallas Morning News, “but baseball is a strange sport.”
How’s this for strange? The Texas offense, once expected to slug its way to a postseason return, has strung together one of its most productive weeks of baseball with five regular hitters sidelined.
They’ve hit .402 with runners in scoring position in their last nine games. They’ve scored nearly a third of their runs (19) with two outs in an inning in that window. The 20 home runs that they’ve hit since Aug. 22 are the most they’ve launched in any nine-game span this season.
Rangers manager Bruce Bochy acknowledged that there’s been a concerted effort to shorten up at the plate and prioritize team at bats. They struck out just 53 times, the third-fewest in baseball, in the eight games prior to Sunday’s win.
“Sometimes things aren’t working,” Bochy said, “so you’ve got to change things a little bit.”
Like, say, some recent track records of key hitters that were expected to carry the Rangers for the majority of this season. Jung, who homered and doubled in Sunday’s win, has slashed .353/.377/.549 in his last 15 games. Right fielder Adolis García, who totaled four opposite field singles in the last two games against the Athletics, has slashed .317/.338/.524 in that same timeframe.
Joc Pederson, the designated hitter who trudged through a much maligned first half, slugged six home runs in August and slashed .333/.333/.733 in his last seven games of the month. Even Smith, who hit .204 in August, reached base five times in Sunday’s finale.
“No one’s trying to go up there and get the big hit,” Jung said, “It’s just letting it happen and playing baseball. It’s fun to watch.”
It’d be more fun if it continued into the regular season’s final month.
“I think [we need] to continue to keep it light,” Pederson, a two-time World Series winner, said. “I think a lot of time emotions are high, things are running a little hot. Instead of being reactionary, understand how we put ourselves in this position, continue to do that and have fun while doing it.”
It’s worth a shot.
What else do they have to lose?
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