From left, Texas Rangers center fielder Evan Carter, shortstop Corey Seager (5), left fielder Wyatt Langford (36) and third baseman Ezequiel Duran (20) of a baseball game, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
Lindsey Wasson/AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson
SEATTLE — A couple of hours before the first game of yet another make-or-break road trip for the Texas Rangers, manager Skip Schumaker hustled some of the senior leaders on the roster into his office for a quick huddle Tuesday.
He asked them to reinforce a message.
It only sounded like he was channeling Eminem.
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“You’ve got one chance at 2026,” Schumaker said in summing up what he called a normal monthly get-together with Corey Seager, Nathan Eovaldi, Joc Pederson and Brandon Nimmo. “And there’s a message that needs to be sent to our group. We had an unbelievable team win on Sunday. How do you carry that over into the next series with an off day. I just wanted to make sure that I’m not missing anything, that they are not missing anything and that we are going about everything the right way.”
Certainly seemed like everything came through loud and clear in a 10-5 win over Seattle that followed. It was an absolute template for road success. The Rangers scored in the first inning on a Corey Seager homer. They scored in the second on a walk, a stolen base, a productive out and a two-out, opposite field single by Nicky Lopez, making his first start in nearly three weeks. They extended the lead with a two-out, pinch-hit single by Justin Foscue. After Seattle made the game close, the Rangers responded with two homers in a five-run fifth that was built around a patient, disciplined approach. And Cal Quantrill gave them a quality start, which, of course, has become the expectation.
Nope, didn’t seem like anybody was missing anything. Only thing that didn’t go right was the one thing the Rangers can’t control. All the teams ahead of them in their races for various playoff spots also won, leaving the Rangers two games back of Houston in the AL West and 1 ½ behind Cleveland for the final wild card with 17 games remaining.
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“We know what our record is when we score first; we talked about it before the game,” Schumaker allowed. “There was slug. There were productive outs. There were big two-out RBIs. There were some really good defensive plays. But it all starts with pitching. So, yeah, just overall a really good game.”
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Now, comes the subject for the next gathering of the leadership committee: How do they repeat this?
It’s worth looking at the formula they rode to this win.
Start with Seager’s first-inning homer off Bryce Miller. It checked off two important boxes on the Rangers’ winning recipe list. When they score in the first inning, they are the best in baseball at 33-9. When Seager homers, the Rangers are 12-4 this year, 60-33 over the last four seasons.
Over the next three innings, the Rangers added on three runs to build the lead to 4-0. When they score first and reach four runs, they are now 47-4, the second-best record in the game when meeting both criteria. They raced to add on runs like they knew the record. In each rally, a walk became a run. In both innings, they forced the issue with a stolen base. In both innings, Lopez had opposite-field singles, just trying to make contact.
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After Seattle drew within one on a two-out, three-run homer by Lazaro Montes, the Rangers answered with a two-run homer by Wyatt Langford, who’d entered the game with a .300 slugging percentage since July 31. And they decided the game with a two-out, three-run homer by No. 9 hitter Danny Jansen after Jake Burger worked a walk and Lopez reached base for the third straight time.
The big lead also allowed the Rangers to reset their best bullpen arms — Jacob Latz, Tyler Alexander and Jakob Junis — an extra day. That may have an impact on the Rangers being in position to actually win a road series for the first time since July 1.
“I think today is a good example of what we’re capable of,” Quantrill said. “We played great defense. We were on the attack the whole game. It felt like both their pitchers and hitters were never comfortable. It felt like the brand of baseball we know we can play. We just need to do it consistently over our last 17 games.”
Didn’t matter who delivered the message. What mattered was that it came through loud and clear.
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“There were two points,” Nimmo said. “First, don’t worry about what anybody else is doing. And, secondly, be positive, be uplifting, speak positive affirmations. Try and lift others around you. Those two things were what we discussed. That’s what was discussed in the hitters meeting. But those two things, we think are very important going down the stretch. And that’s what we are going to focus on as we continue.”
On Tuesday, it certainly looked like the recipe for winning.