Texas Rangers’ Ezequiel Duran is tagged out by Kansas City Royals catcher Carter Jensen as he tried to score on a fielders choice hit by Evan Carter during the second inning of a baseball game, Tuesday, June 9, 2026, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Charlie Riedel/AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Perhaps the Rangers have trusted Nathan Eovaldi so implicitly that they might have to walk it back.
If so, it’s a recent development. What’s not so recent, though, is an offense that continues to backfire at least as often as it fires. Which perhaps explains why every time the Rangers have gotten a chance to get back to .500 in the last five weeks — six times, to be exact — they’ve coughed out black smoke and sputtered through their own fog like they did in Tuesday’s 5-3 loss to Kansas City.
Article continues below this ad
“Oh, gosh, I didn’t even think about that today,” Schumaker said. “I just wanted to win the first game of the series. We had a really good pitcher on the mound, we had traffic again all game and just couldn’t get that big hit to separate and give our starting pitcher a bigger cushion. We were up two and it felt like we should have been up four or five. We let them back into it and ended up costing us the game.”
Eovaldi gave up a barrage of four 100-mph-or-better blasts in the game-deciding sixth inning; then his relief help, Jalen Beeks, gave up two more, including the second homer of the night to Jac Caglianone.
Or look at it from the bright side: The two former University of Florida outfielders in the game combined to hit two homers. That’s a polite way to segue into a Rangers offense that is still trying hard to learn how to manufacture runs and to optimize opportunities. There are nights when they look great. Then there are nights like Tuesday when they go 1 for 9 with runners in scoring position and cost themselves a golden opportunity to open up a big early lead.
In the second inning, they had already scored a run, had runners on the corners with nobody out and … got nothing more than a “teaching moment.”
Article continues below this ad
Evan Carter, who spent 30 minutes on bunting practice early in the afternoon, couldn’t get a bunt down in the game. Instead, he hit the ball to third. Ezequiel Duran, the runner at third, got caught in a rundown he couldn’t extend long enough to allow the trail runner to advance to third. And when the dust cleared, Kyle Higashioka bounced into the inning-ending double play the Rangers were hoping to avoid in the first place.
“That was a big inning; you figure you are going to get at least a couple runs and have the top of the order coming up,” Schumaker said. “We want to stay in the rundown, and so when we just kind of ran into the out and didn’t let the trail runner get to third to kind of force a first and third situation again, it just becomes a teaching moment and something we’ll learn from as we move forward.”
Schumaker and his staff are having to do a lot of teaching this season as the Rangers try to find ways to score runs that don’t always require slugging. On Tuesday, Carter and others went out for extra early bunting practice to help him build confidence in a tool that can bring his extreme speed into play better. He later met with Schumaker privately.
The Rangers are trying to do everything they can to build confidence in that element of his game. On Tuesday, he showed bunt twice with runners on base but didn’t end up offering at either pitch. He did reach on a single, forced two throwing errors on the bases and created one of the Rangers’ two runs all on his own. It should serve as reinforcement that he’s a danger when he gets on — if he gets on. But since May 15, he’s had a .257 OBP and one of his eight hits was against a position player throwing run-rule batting practice.
Texas Rangers starting pitcher Nathan Eovaldi throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Kansas City Royals, Tuesday, June 9, 2026, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Charlie Riedel/AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
All of this was a prelude to Eovaldi’s sixth-inning issue, which happened fast. In a matter of just 11 pitches, the top half of the Royals lineup rapped out a 111 mph double, a 101 mph triple and a 102 mph go-ahead double. The last two hits both came with two strikes on a fastball left in the upper third of the zone of the zone and a splitter at the thigh.
Article continues below this ad
Eovaldi had allowed one hit on 71 pitches through the first five innings. What happened, Nate?
“I’m not sure,” Eovaldi said. “Obviously I left some pitches up in the zone. I just have to do a better job in those situations, in those situations of executing my pitches, especially being at the top part of their lineup.”
Eovaldi, who had pitched through the sixth inning in nine of his last 10 outings this season, is allowing hitters a .461 slugging percentage the third time through the order. It may make Schumaker a little more reluctant to trust him as much as he has.
What could help: Being able to trust that his offense will turn opportunities into runs.