ARLINGTON — Texas Rangers right-hander Tyler Mahle stood by his locker inside a largely emptied clubhouse, some three hours after he’d thrown his last pitch, and explained that his return from a three-month stay on the injured list was largely driven by his intent to pitch in the playoffs.
“That was the main focus,” Mahle said before he corrected himself. “Or, is the main focus.”
This is the tone that the Rangers must now speak in: carefully worded phrases that reflect both the semblance of hope that the club still retains and the morose recognition of the position it’s in.
The fiery team that once stormed its way back into contention and spoke of its goals with bravado thanks to a gaggle of anonymous rookies with a cute nickname has now been reduced to a dormant group that’s limped through a five-game stretch of must-win contests and treads cautiously.
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The latest loss, a 6-4 extra innings loss vs. the close-to-elimination Miami Marlins, ended in the 12th when the visitor’s scored three times against a starting pitcher that the Rangers were forced to use in relief. The Rangers, in fact, used nearly as many starters (three) as their offense mustered hits (four) in the loss.
The exact semantics of one ugly loss pale in comparison to the magnified impact that it has. The Rangers trail the Boston Red Sox and Houston Astros by five games for the American League’s third Wild Card berth. They’re three-and-a-half games behind the Cleveland Guardians, too, and will play them three times next weekend. Their postseason odds, according to FanGraphs, have been reduced to 1.1% and have dropped by more than 37% in the last week alone.
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“We’ve definitely put ourselves in a hole, a little bit, with how many games we have left,” shortstop Josh Smith said. “Still, anything can happen, that’s kind of how we’ve got to go from this point.”
The game itself, a microcosm of the season, featured a flat offense and a staff of pitchers that were asked to over-extend themselves. The Rangers scored two-thirds of their runs on a two-out, two-run home run from pinch hitter Rowdy Tellez that tied the game in the bottom of the 10th inning.
That marked the club’s first hit since the sixth inning and only its second since third baseman Josh Jung scored designated hitter Joc Pederson with a weak dribbler down the third base line in the bottom of the second. They went 0 for 8 in their final eight bats in regulation and didn’t record a base hit in the final two frames of extras.
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In the 11th, with Jung at second as the ghost runner, rookie Cody Freeman hit a groundball to shortstop Otto Lopez that was then rifled toward third baseman Connor Norby to tag Jung out. Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said that he’d given Freeman the green light to “drive on the other way” versus a bunt. In the 12th, down by three, the Rangers were only able to score ghost runner Ezequiel Duran on a groundout and a sacrifice fly.
“We didn’t hit very many balls hard,” Bochy said. “It was a tough day for the offense.”
Tough days for the offense often result in tough days for the pitchers that are required to shoulder the slack. Mahle, in his first start since June 10 after shoulder fatigue sidelined him, pitched 4 2/3 scoreless innings. Left-hander Jacob Latz, who’d worked usefully as a starter in his previous four appearances and is fully stretched out, threw just 16 pitches and recorded two outs before he was replaced.
Bochy said the intent was for Latz to only face a small pocket of batters because the Rangers had their stock of high-leverage arms available and lined up.
It’s a fine plan on paper.
The club’s offense, at least at one point, looked decent on paper too.
“There wasn’t a very big margin of error,” Bochy said. “That’s what can happen when you can’t put a game away.”
Left-hander Robert Garcia, once the team’s closer before a string of blown saves earned him a demotion, allowed the Marlins to tie the game at 1-1 in the top of the seventh inning when he hung a slider that pinch hitter Javier Sanoja crushed into left field for a solo home run.
Garcia, right-hander Phil Maton and right-hander Shawn Armstrong combined for two scoreless innings to lift the Rangers into extra innings while their offense sat silent. But the Rangers needed to use left-hander Hoby Milner, who has a 16.62 ERA in September, for the 10th inning with six arms already spent. The result was two runs on a double, a single and an intentional walk.
In the 12th — after Tellez tied the game and after right-hander Cole Winn threw 1 2/3 scoreless frames — the depleted Rangers were forced to turn toward left-handed starter Patrick Corbin.
The 36-year-old had started 28 games for the Rangers this year and hadn’t worked out of the bullpen in the regular season since Sep. 29, 2017 with the Arizona Diamondbacks. The result was three runs, on two doubles and a single, that the Rangers couldn’t match or overcome in the bottom half of the inning.
“I was comfortable with him,” Bochy said. “We gave him time, we got him loose. He’s pitched in a lot of big games. That’s why he got the nod.”
The Rangers are short on time — and on opportunities — to put themselves in a position to play more big games. Hope theoretically remains. The Rangers, though, have lost the privilege to view it with the same level of optimism that they once did.
“We really needed this one tonight,” Smith said. “Anything can still happen, I guess, if we’re not officially out.”
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