HOUSTON — When the fifth inning was done Wednesday, and so was he, slump-shouldered Jacob deGrom staggered from the mound to the dugout, his glove limp and draped on his throwing hand and a bewildered, beaten look upon his face.
And we were left to wonder this: Was it the last image we’ll have of deGrom on the field in this otherwise unquestioned success of a comeback season?
It’s entirely possible.
The Rangers’ brilliant rotation — deGrom included — let them down in a three-game sweep at the hand of the Houston Astros to start the season’s penultimate week. In a 5-2 loss Wednesday, deGrom allowed all five runs, including three on a pair of homers, that sapped the club’s last, best hope of jumping back into any American League playoff race.
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Instead, they lost for the fourth straight game, trail Boston for the final wild card spot by 4½ games with nine to play and relinquished any chance at the AL West. The loss gave Houston the season series and any tiebreaker in a head-to-head tie with the Rangers for any playoff spot. Yeah, it wasn’t a good night. Or a good week. Or, all things considered, a good road trip, even after winning the first two games at New York last weekend.
“We know our backs are to the wall,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “That’s how we have to look at it and that’s how we have to play — with nothing to lose. We’ve got to get back to playing good baseball, tighten up the defense a little and get the pitching back to where it was and hopefully get on a roll.”
The series was a complete breakdown by the Rangers. They did not lead at the end of a single inning. They began it with a multi-error effort, only their 10th of the season. Over the course of the series, the Rangers ran when they shouldn’t have (in the opener) and held when they should have run (in the ninth inning Tuesday with the tying run on first base) at key moments. In losing the first two games, the Nos. 3-4 hitters went 1 for 12 with seven strikeouts and forced Bochy to switch guys around every day.
With their season hanging in the balance the Nos. 3-5 hitters in the lineup Wednesday were Joc Pederson, hitting .178, Rowdy Tellez, hitting .227, and Adolis García, who had been benched the night before. None of that is surprising. The Rangers are playing without half their regular lineup.
But the rotation, the Rangers’ biggest asset all year, finally appeared unfit for the task. Jack Leiter, Merrill Kelly and deGrom each allowed at least five runs. DeGrom allowed a two-run, two-out single in the first to cap a 35-pitch inning and homers to Jose Altuve in the third and Jeremy Peña in the fifth.
“It’s frustrating,” said deGrom, who’d fired his glove down in the dugout after the first. “We needed to come in here and win at least two out of three, and we ended up getting swept. We definitely needed to win this one, and I did not do my job. That’s why we lost the game.”
Which brings us to the point of whether he will start again. DeGrom’s next turn in the rotation would fall either Tuesday or Wednesday against Minnesota. But with their elimination number down to six, any combination of Boston wins and Ranger losses that reach that total would officially eliminate them from contention. It’s entirely possible that could happen by the end of the weekend.
DeGrom has already pitched 167⅓ innings this season, enough to qualify for the AL’s ERA title. Even with his ERA pushed up to 3.01 after Wednesday, he still ranks fourth. It’s fair to say he’s passed just about everybody’s expectations for him, save for maybe his own, in terms of workload. Considering he’d pitched 197⅓ innings over the previous four seasons combined, 150 might have been a realistic goal. If he starts again, though, it will be his 30th start.
Of course, there is the question of whether deGrom has been pitching on fumes for a while now. In three September starts, two against the Astros, he’s allowed 11 runs, including five homers, in 17⅓ innings.
“The stuff was still good,” Bochy said. “In the first inning, he logged a lot of pitches and that might have caught up with him a little bit there, but, you know, he was battling out there, and just made a couple mistakes there too. They have a really good lineup and they took advantage of some mistakes.”
DeGrom would love to keep pitching. But, if there’s nothing left to play for, his maintenance becomes the bigger priority than winning another meaningless game.
And the reality the Rangers are facing now is that by the time he’s due to pitch again, the rest of their games may be just that: meaningless.
After being Rangers’ backbone all season, starting pitching fails them in do-or-die seriesRangers fumble Silver Boot to Astros as series sweep likely dooms Texas’ playoff hopes
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