Texas Rangers relief pitcher Jacob Latz, left, and catcher Danny Jansen, right, shake hands after a baseball game against the Minnesota Twins, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Abbie Parr/AP Photo/Abbie Parr
MINNEAPOLIS – It must end this way.
Nobody ever knew what to make of the Rangers this season, least of all themselves. They have spent the entire season without a real identity. Only Sunday’s regular-season finale will determine how they are remembered. They’ll either be the most fortunate team in history to win a division title, or they’ll fail to win the most winnable division ever.
But maybe in a rain-delayed 6-2 win over Minnesota Saturday that kept their season alive, they found something to latch on to. Doesn’t necessarily need to be permanent. Just needs to last through Sunday.
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“I think the identity is what you just saw tonight,” Skip Schumaker said. “We’ve played some tough games here or there, but those guys aren’t going to go down without a fight. You could tell that they played for each other and that they were going to give every single ounce to empty the tank, especially this last week. They have never quit.”
To his point: On Saturday, the Rangers got 4 2/3 innings and 71 pitches from Nathan Eovaldi, who hadn’t started, pitched that many innings or thrown near that many pitches in seven weeks. They got a rally-starting double from catcher Danny Jansen, who missed two months. They got a two-out, run-scoring double from Alejandro Osuna, who had started once in the majors since Aug. 1.
They got another two-out, run-scoring double in their four-run second inning from Brandon Nimmo, who fought calf cramps most of the game. They got a huge rally-killing double play ball from Robert Garcia, who missed four months with shoulder issues. And even after another injury, Nicky Lopez vowed to be ready on Sunday despite hyperextending his knee when he hit a base.
“That was an incredible fight to the end,” Schumaker said. “Multiple guys banged up that did not want to come out of the game. They knew what was at stake. That’s what it’s all about. That’s why I’m so proud to be the manager of this team.”
And so the Rangers will play game 162 on Sunday at 2:10 p.m., with MacKenzie Gore starting, with everything at stake. Neither the Rangers, now 80-81, nor the Astros, who played late at Sacramento Saturday, will win more than 81 games. If the teams end up tied, the Rangers would be squeezed out because Houston owns the head-to-head tiebreaker. It will be the first time a team with a non-winning record reaches the playoffs in a 162-game season. And the winner will get to host the Chicago White Sox in a best-of-three Wild Card Series that begins on Tuesday.
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Should we be surprised that neither team has blazed its way down the stretch? Probably not. It seemed at the season’s outset that Rangers’ and Astros’ owners were more than ready to cede the division to Seattle, the 2025 division champ. The Rangers cut payroll by $33 million, according to FanGraphs, the second largest cut in baseball. The Astros cut by $11 million, fired GM Dana Brown in August and told manager Joe Espada he’d not return for 2027. Nobody expected Seattle to simply abdicate.
That the Rangers can still make the final day of the season matter is a miracle. In the last two weeks alone, they’ve lost their top two hitters, in terms of OPS, to broken hands, the result of being hit by pitches. Josh Jung, who’d only returned from injury 10 days ago, was hit in the first inning Friday by a pitch from Joe Ryan.
The Rangers haven’t had a starting pitcher get through six innings in 11 straight games, tied for the second longest streak in team history. Their thin and overworked bullpen worked the final 4 1/3 innings, which has been a usual day’s work this month. They’ve averaged just under 4 2/3 innings per game since Sept. 1.
Yet, Houston, which has held at least a share of first place for all but two days since the start of August, has refused to let them die. The Astros went 6-12 in the 18 games prior to Saturday’s date with the Athletics.
And it gave the Rangers one more chance to rally around something. They recognized it. Better late than never.
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“This is what you want,” said Nimmo, who exited the game for defense in the ninth, but also expects to play Sunday. “It’s what you play the game for. You want to be playing meaningful baseball at this time, and we have been. For it to come down to 162, really fits this season. It’s just been a grind. It’s been a lot of hard-fought guys trying to stay on the field. We are putting up a fight and are making it a meaningful game.”
“This is all you can ask for,” said Jake Burger, who hit his 28th homer to cap the Rangers’ scoring. “It doesn’t matter what it looks like through the entire year; if you are going into Game 162 with something to play for, that’s all you can ask for. It can look as ugly or as pretty as you want, but we’re here to compete and if you give yourself a chance at the end of the year, that’s special.”
It will come down to the last day of the season. It had to.