HOUSTON — Call it an allegory for the season.
Certainly beats the alternate title which might begin with requiem.
See if this sounds familiar. Stumble offensively early, stacking up strikeouts and wasting opportunities, seemingly be done by the middle only to rally valiantly with grit late. Sound like the 2025 Rangers? Sure. But it also told the tale of Tuesday’s game at Houston. Only difference: The game had an end, with the Rangers falling just short, 6-5. In another couple of days, that may be the final chapter of this season, too.
The loss dropped the Rangers four games back of Houston for the final wild card spot with 10 to play and dropped them a game behind Cleveland for the stalking position. We’re not even tracking the AL West any more. It also brought some other stuff more clearly into focus, stuff like an elimination number. With Houston already having 83 wins and the Rangers at 73 losses, any combination of Astros wins and Rangers losses totalling seven would officially finish them off.
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And if Houston can finish off a three-game sweep Wednesday, it will give the Astros the head-to-head tiebreaker between the teams, too, and, as a result, the Silver Boot Trophy. The Astros haven’t lost the season series to the Rangers since 2016.
Of course that all sounds terribly dour, which, of course it is. Still, there were some exciting chapters along the way. Just as they have in the final stages of this season, the Rangers, down 6-0 after four and 6-1 after seven, scored four runs after there were two outs in the eighth and had the go-ahead run on base in each of the final two innings.
“They showed tremendous fight and battled hard,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “Got off to a rough start there and were fighting to get back in it. They did. We were just missing that one big hit. But you’ve got to love how they just get going. So, keep doing this. That’s what we’ve got to do to get where we want.”
Well, this, except for the coming up short part. They exhausted all their excusable near-misses long ago. So, on Tuesday, it was great that Cody Freeman hit a two-strike homer, that Rowdy Tellez started a big rally with a two-out, pinch-hit walk, that Jonah Heim followed with a homer and that Adolis García took a nice controlled swing as a pinch-hitter to drive in the fifth run on the first pitch he saw. Still, the Rangers lost.
They lost because they piled up seven strikeouts at the plate in the first three innings, including a feeble attempt by Jake Burger with two outs and a runner at third in the third. He swung at four pitches all out of the zone. The miracle was that he actually fouled two off. He is 0 for 7, batting in the Nos. 3-4 spots, at Houston with five strikeouts. Bochy said Burger simply isn’t seeing the ball well. It led to him pinch hitting for his No. 3 hitter with Tellez in the eighth.
They lost because when they needed to make something happen on the bases to optimize a run-scoring opportunity, they didn’t. Josh Smith led off the ninth with a single. Getting to second would have put him in scoring position with the middle of the lineup coming up. But Smith, 12 for 15 in steal attempts this year, didn’t go. And Wyatt Langford didn’t advance him, taking a called third strike for the first out. It really stood out as a failure when Jonah Heim’s sinking two-out liner fell in front of a sliding Cam Smith. Had Smith been running from second on the play, he might well have scored. Instead, he didn’t even get to third. And the game ended with Kyle Higashioka striking out.
It was so close. And so far.
Sounds too hauntingly familiar.
And, yet, the Rangers have a chance to keep a faint glimmer alive on Wednesday, sending their best pitcher, Jacob deGrom to the mound for the series finale ahead of a week-long homestand against sub-.500 teams. Even Bochy couldn’t deny that Wednesday is as close to a must-win for the Rangers as there is.
“They’re all must-win now,” he said. “We’re down and have some catching up to do. That’s how we’re looking at it. Hopefully we can get some runs early, instead of having to play from behind.”
He was talking about the game. But he was describing the season.
Jake Burger’s untimely woes in middle of Rangers’ lineup proving costly vs. AstrosRangers rally late vs. Astros, but can’t climb out of hole in make-or-break game
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