ARLINGTON — We bring the good news only here. If you have invested time and energy into this Rangers season, you could probably use a dab about now, anyway. So, we bring you this: Of the three teams vying for the final AL wild card spot, the Rangers have, statistically speaking, the easiest final 10 days of the season.
So, they’ve got that going for them.
May be all they have, but that’s another story.
The Rangers now have eyes only on their own situation, partly because there is no use wondering about Seattle and Houston in the AL West. The sweep in Houston left the Rangers five back with nine games to play, but essentially eliminated them. One of Houston or Seattle is guaranteed to have at least 86 wins — the teams play a three-game series this weekend in Houston — and, for practical purposes, it’s really 87. Both teams own tiebreakers against the Rangers, which is worth another game in the standings.
Rangers
About the wild card race, in which the Rangers find themselves lagging 2½ games behind Cleveland and four back of current occupant Boston, chances are better. They go from none to slim. As of Thursday morning, they stood at 4.3% chance of getting in, according to Fangraphs, down from 38.1% in a mere five days. Not even a meme coin can drop value that fast.
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“We kind of have to play perfect on the way out just to have a fighting chance,” designated hitter Joc Pederson said Wednesday night. “It is what it is. We’ve got to move forward and learn from it. It sucks.”
That said, we’re always here to help. First of all, does anybody ever really attain perfection? But you didn’t come for a philosophical discussion. But to this point, we’re even going to allow for a mistake along the way. One. Maybe. Even going 8-1, which would get the Rangers to 87 wins, might not be enough to track down a Boston team that needs to go 5-4 over its final nine games to render whatever the Rangers do moot. To say nothing of Cleveland, which has now won seven straight (and 12 of 13) and hosts the Rangers the final weekend of the season.
That said, here’s what needs to happen for the Rangers to make the playoffs:
Take advantage of the schedule
The Rangers have six games at home against losing teams Minnesota and Miami before the series at Cleveland. Both Cleveland and Boston are on the road this weekend. Bad as they’ve been on the road, at 47-28, the Rangers are tied for the seventh-best home record in the majors. And they’ve been even better in the second half of the season, going 21-9, including 10 wins in their last 12 games. The first step: Clean their own house.
Score four
We’ve tracked the Rangers’ winning percentage when they get to four or more runs all year and nothing has changed. If they can manufacture four runs or more, they are 63-17 (.788); it’s the sixth-best winning percentage in baseball for that stat. All of the teams better are either currently holding playoff tickets or currently hold spots.
The best route to get there: Walk a little more. When they walk at least four times in a game, they are 41-19 this season, regardless of runs scored. And when they put the four and four together, they get eight. Which is more than just good addition skills, it’s their winning percentage. They are 35-7 (.833) when reaching both thresholds.
How does that factor into lineup construction? Well, it may mean Bruce Bochy needs to optimize plate discipline a little more, which could translate to sitting Jake Burger and Adolis García. Both have walk rates under 5%. Burger, at 3.4%, has the third-lowest rate of 269 major leaguers with at least 300 plate appearances. Rowdy Tellez’s walk rate is 7.3%; Michael Helman’s is 7.7%.
Detroit, rock city
The suddenly listing Tigers could do both themselves and the Rangers a favor by righting their ship for the final 10 days. Detroit, still holding the AL Central and No. 2 seed, spends the final week of the season on the road at … Cleveland and Boston. A dominant final week by the Tigers might be enough for Rangers fans to let bygones be bygones with manager A.J. Hinch, whose previous job was in Houston.
It also wouldn’t hurt if Minnesota might show some late-season split personality tendencies. The Twins, who have the second-worst record in baseball since trading away half their roster at the deadline, host Cleveland for four games (including a doubleheader) over the weekend, then come to Arlington to start the final week.
Manipulate the rotation
With two off days in the final 10-day run, the Rangers do have the chance to tweak the rotation a little, if needed. His two sub-par stints against Houston notwithstanding, Jacob deGrom is still an ace and ranks fourth in the AL in ERA. You’d like that guy to have as many remaining starts as possible.
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If the Rangers stay in order, deGrom’s next start would be Wednesday against Minnesota on six days of rest. But, if they push him up a day to Tuesday, still on five days of rest, he’d potentially be available with the typical four days of rest for the final game of the season at Cleveland. That would likely require bumping either Patrick Corbin or Jack Leiter from a start this weekend and into the bullpen, which might be getting a little too far out ahead of the situation.
Pray a little
It may not help. But it couldn’t hurt.
Do all of that and we can transition a column that began with a Caddyshack line to end with one from Dumb and Dumber:
We’re saying there’s a chance.
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