Rangers’ pitching staff has been the league’s best, but it could only take Texas so far

ARLINGTON — There’s an unintentional formula to Bruce Bochy’s postgame press conferences. It’s not that the Texas Rangers manager isn’t forthright or invested in articulation. It’s just that the repetitive manner in which his team’s games have played out for nearly an entire regular season have created a pattern.

He begins, far too often for his preferences, with a line like this.

“Their pitching just did a job on us,” he said Wednesday after a 4-0 loss vs. the Minnesota Twins in the club’s final home game at Globe Life Field. “We couldn’t get much going.”

He continues, almost equally as often, as follows.

Rangers

“Our guy,” Bochy said, “pitched really well.”

The lopsided combination elicited more questions than answers in a six-month span, ended the competitive portion of the team’s season with a week left to play and squandered what may go down as the best staff of pitchers in Rangers history.

Their staff-wide 3.45 ERA leads baseball with three games left to play in the regular season. So does the rotation’s 3.40 ERA. The former mark is the fourth-best in franchise history; the latter ranks third. Each of the staffs that bested this current iteration played before the wild card era (1995) kicked off.

Only 10 teams have posted a 3.45 ERA or better in the regular season and missed the playoffs this century. Seven finished with at least 85 wins. The Rangers will need to win their final series against the Cleveland Guardians just to clinch an above-.500 record.

“I felt like we should have won this division if you told me this pitching was going to do what it did,” Bochy said before Wednesday’s game. “We pitched better than Seattle if you look at the numbers.”

Fact check: true. The Mariners, hailed as one of baseball’s best staffs with a case of All-Star starters, have posted a 3.87 ERA in totality and a 3.96 ERA among its rotation. The difference between the Rangers, who were eliminated from postseason contention Tuesday, and the Mariners, who stormed their way to their first AL West title in more than two decades Wednesday night, were the bats.

Seattle wasn’t necessarily an elite or historic offense — save for their prolific catcher who may land some major hardware this offseason — by any mainstream metrics. Their 754 runs scored rank ninth in baseball. Their .744 OPS that ranks 10th. They struck out more than all but five teams and posted a bottom-third average.

But, with a respectable stables of arms, a high-powered lineup is not an inherent requirement for success. There is, however, a need for some level of consistency and competency.

How’s that for a segue?

The Rangers scored five runs in three games against a Minnesota team that sold off half of its big league roster at the July 31 trade deadline. The starter trio of Zebby Mathews (5.56 ERA), Taj Bradley (5.20 ERA) and Bailey Ober (5.32 ERA) held the Rangers to just two runs on eight hits in the three-game set.

Their first loss of the series, to Matthews, drew Bochy’s ire and forced the manager to publicly criticize his team’s focus. The second game, a 4-2 win, was made possible only because All-Star right-hander Jacob deGrom allowed just one run, finished the season with a 2.97 ERA and notched his 30th start in his first full year back from elbow surgery. On Thursday, in their 15th shutout loss this season, right-hander Tyler Mahle threw five innings of one-run ball in his second game back from a three-month injury-induced layoff.

The Rangers lost seven of the 16 games that Mahle, who finished with a 2.18 ERA in 86 2/3 innings this year, started. They lost 14 of the 30 games started by deGrom. They even lost a third of the games started by right-hander Nathan Eovaldi — who was on a Cy Young award track with a 1.73 ERA before a rotator cuff strain — this season.

Eovaldi, signed to a two-year deal last winter, will return next season. Ditto for deGrom who, on Wednesday, declared his intentions to pitch 200 innings next year. Mahle, a free agent, said Thursday that he’s yet to give much thought toward his future. The Rangers will hope that rookie right-hander Jack Leiter’s leaps this year can continue onward.

It’s not inconceivable to believe that the Rangers can field a top-tier staff again next season. It’s difficult to envision marginally different results if the offense isn’t improved.

The rotation, even baseball’s best, can only shoulder so much.

That, they’ll tell you, is a terrible thing to waste.

As Rangers’ season comes to an end, it’s time to start thinking about the changes ahead