ARLINGTON, TEXAS – SEPTEMBER 6: Jake Burger #21 of the Texas Rangers celebrates after hitting a two-run home run against the Tampa Bay Rays during the fourth inning at Globe Life Field on September 6, 2026 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)
Ron Jenkins/Getty Images
ARLINGTON — Texas Rangers manager Skip Schumaker preached the virtue of belief at the midpoint of a critical series, and explained that in his experience as a player or coach, it’s a required trait for postseason pushes.Â
He clarified that his team posesses that necessary conviction, and even if he wanted a publicity stunt to prove the non-believers wrong, he couldn’t have drawn up anything clearer than the night game (in which his All-Star closer blew a save to whiff on what would’ve been a fine comeback win) to day game (in which one of his hottest starting pitcher finished with more earned runs than innings pitched) swing that his team promptly plowed through.Â
“You don’t come back after a tough loss last night — and that was a really tough loss late — and the next game is a day game and you get your teeth kicked in the first couple of innings,” Schumaker said. “If you don’t have belief, that game gets out of hand, and you’re staring at a 10-1 game.”
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The Rangers will tell any and all who listen that they have belief.Â
Sunday, in what Schumaker described as “a hell of a team win,” they showed it.Â
The Rangers rallied from an early four-run deficit against a team that has blown the third-fewest leads in baseball this season, won 8-6 vs. the Tampa Bay Rays at Globe Life Field on Sunday afternoon, split a four-game series against their league’s best team and ended a week-long homestand still in the postseason mix. They remain two games behind the first-place Houston Astros in the AL West race and two games behind the Cleveland Guardians in the AL wild card race.Â
Or, in other words, the exact same position, deficit-for-deficit, team-for-team that they were in one week prior.Â
“I think it’s a super bizarre race,” first baseman Jake Burger said, “but, at the end of the day, I think we can just focus on what we have in here.”Â
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Related:Â Time slipping away for roller coaster Rangers to put together a serious playoff push
The Rangers have what they believe is a playoff-caliber team inside their clubhouse despite the fact that their record and postseason position currently suggest otherwise. Schumaker, a World Series champion as a player who’s reached the postseason as a manager, reiterated the importance of internal faith before the third game of the series and singled out the “crazy belief” that his current players hold. Pitcher Jacob deGrom, the club’s most senior member, doubled down immediately after it and stated that he thinks his team can play to the level required to clinch a postseason berth. Shortstop Corey Seager, a postseason hero for two different franchises, simply said that the team “knows what we’re capable of.”Â
Burger, who has assumed a larger team leadership role in his second season with the club, matched his play to their words.
The 30-year-old hit two home runs off of Rays left-handed pitcher Ian Seymour — a solo shot on a fastball in the second inning and a two-run shot on a changeup in the fourth — to start the slow erosion of what had been a four-run deficit created by left-handed pitcher MacKenzie Gore. He’s posted a .297/.349/.521 slash line and hit 14 of his 25 home runs in games that the Rangers win this season, which might be why Schumaker, who’s now managed him at two different stops, succinctly classified him as a “winner” after Sunday’s finale.Â
Burger shaved his bushy beard into a goatee prior to this homestand. His wife, Ashlyn, said that he could keep it only if he hit two home runs this series.Â
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“I give her props for the leeway she showed me throughout the series,” Burger said. “I got it done the last game of the series. She texted me and said ‘I guess it stays.'”Â
That, too, counts as belief.Â
The Burger family evidently knows how to instill it.Â
“It was kind of a little bit of an answer back,” Schumaker said of Burger’s first home run. “I know it was only one run, but that’s what we needed, we needed something positive in that inning. Obviously, he hit another home run, which is awesome, but you’re always looking for an answer. He provided the answer today.”
ARLINGTON, TX – SEPTEMBER 06: Corey Seager #5 of the Texas Rangers high-fives Nicky Lopez #33 after defeating the Tampa Bay Rays at Globe Life Field on Sunday, September 6, 2026 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Courtney Kramer/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
Courtney Kramer/MLB Photos via Getty Images
It kickstarted the Rangers’ second-biggest comeback this season, one that required the use of every bench player, hits from eight different batters and work from five different relief pitchers. They tied the game in the fourth inning (on second baseman Justin Foscue’s bases-loaded double down the right field line), took the lead in the fifth (thanks to consecutive singles from catcher Elias DÃaz and third baseman Ezequiel Duran with runners in scoring position) and maintained it the rest of the way (save for the one run that left-handed pitcher Tyler Alexander allowed in the seventh).Â
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Seager hit a solo home run in the eighth inning, provided the Rangers a two-run lead and allowed Schumaker to use All-Star closer Jacob Latz for only one inning. Latz, who threw 22 pitches in Saturday’s loss, entered Sunday’s game in the eighth inning instead of the ninth to face the top of Tampa Bay’s lineup. He pitched a scoreless eighth, won a negotiation with Schumaker to pitch the ninth but was told to sit back down after Seager’s home run. Setup man Jakob Junis, who usually pitches in the seventh or eighth innings, carded a scoreless ninth for his sixth save this season.Â
“I knew that if the meat of the order was coming up, and if I was going to go down, I was going to go down with [Latz],” Schumaker said. “Those three at the top [of Tampa Bay’s order] are as good as anybody in the major leagues. I was sick of seeing them hit extra base hits, it feels like, for four games. I didn’t want to see any more guys on base, honestly, with those guys. I felt like our best shot was with Latz there and with Junis behind him.”
The Rangers have that much.Â
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“I think there’s a lot of belief in the clubhouse amongst the guys,” Burger said. “It’s still right there for us.”