Texas Rangers designated hitter Wyatt Langford (36) connects with the ball during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Los Angeles Angels at Globe Life Field, Thursday, July 9, 2026, in Arlington.
Chitose Suzuki/The Dallas Morning News
ARLINGTON — Even being breathless didn’t stop him. From the moment on Wednesday that Wyatt Langford finished his most rigorous workout since he strained his left hamstring two weeks ago, he lobbied for an immediate return to the Rangers lineup.
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And from the Rangers’ perspective: No arguments.
So, he was back in the Rangers’ lineup on Thursday, one day after the minimum amount of time on the IL. And he was hitting second, the highest profile spot in the lineup. To make room for Langford, the Rangers optioned Josh Smith back to Triple-A Round Rock for the second time in a month. Right now, the team is too left-handed and right-handed hitting Cameron Cauley offers more value than Smith, which is a story unto itself.
In case you can’t read the tea leaves: The moment is urgent. The Rangers stumbled around through the first five games of a crucial stretch heavy in home games. Langford has game-changing ability, which he was showing off before he strained the hamstring. As long as the club’s medical personnel was convinced Langford wasn’t putting himself at risk, Skip Schumaker was already writing his name on the lineup card. The only caveat: His first day back was as DH.
“He’s been lobbying for four days,” Schumaker said with a laugh Thursday afternoon. “And he’s had four days of no issues at all. He got imaging suggesting that he was ready to go, and then he had another really good workday with live batting practice and increased running. Everything checked out. So, there wasn’t any reason for us to feel like he wasn’t ready to start today.”
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Schumaker also wrote Josh Jung’s name on the lineup card too, for the first time in three games since he fouled a ball off his knee. It was the closest the Rangers have been to “full strength” in two weeks. Closer. But still not there yet. Corey Seager still isn’t doing anything that resembles baseball activity and the Rangers aren’t sure when that might begin. So, maybe this is as close as they are going to get for the final 20 games leading up to the Aug. 3 trade deadline.
It’s either time for this team to get going or time for this team to go, if you know what we mean.
“We want to play as good as we possibly can and have the best record we can going into [the deadline],” Langford said. “It’s definitely super important. We feel like we have a really good group in the clubhouse, and I think the front office thinks we do, too. So, now we’ve got to go out and perform like we know we can.”
It’s just that the only thing they’ve performed like is the very definition of a .500 team. They were 46-46 this year, 127-127 since the start of last year and 163-163 over the last 730 days. They were 21-21 at home and 25-25 on the road. We could turn this into a Green Eggs and Ham type thing: “They are .500 at home; they are .500 in this poem; they are .500 in games away; they are .500 wherever they play.”
In the 20 games between IL stints for Langford, he slashed .317/.371/.634/1.005 and the club went 10-10. It’s everywhere, man.
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Except in the AL West, of course.
The Rangers began the day 10-15 inside their own division. They have losing records against three of the other four teams in the division, most notably the Astros, who arrive into Arlington on Friday for the final three games ahead of the All-Star Game. The Rangers go to Houston for the final three before the trade deadline. If you check the standings — Schumaker insists he doesn’t at the moment — the Astros are right on the Rangers’ tail in both the AL West and wild card races.
The six games between now and the deadline will determine not just the Silver Boot trophy, but a potential tiebreaker between the two. At the moment, the Astros hold a 5-2 lead there, meaning the Rangers would have to go 5-1 in these six games to win the two-way tiebreaker. The races are going to be close enough, the Rangers don’t need any more obstacles. By playing so poorly in the division, they have potentially created another for themselves.
Following up an 8-3 win over Los Angeles on Tuesday with a 13-1 loss on Wednesday to bring them back to .500 wasn’t going to help either, except reaffirm the whole .500 thing.
“We had a tough loss yesterday,” Schumaker said. “How we rebound today is what we’re trying to figure out as a staff. We have Wyatt and [Jung] back in there; that helps. It’s a really good start. There’s some health stuff that we’ve got to figure out and make sure we get healthy.
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“The good news is we’ve had a lot of guys that are filling in spots that have helped to stay afloat in the division, so that’s also exciting. Playing better at home is real. That part we have to figure out. We have to have a winning record at home, and a game like last night, on both sides of the ball, just wasn’t acceptable. We’ve got to figure out how to get back to winning ways. I think that’s part of the conversation today.”
And when you can start the conversation with Langford in the lineup, it’s a lot easier to have the talk.