manager Skip Schumaker said. \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\nBoy, was it ever. Each loss now carries consequences, and they grow greater by the day. On Friday, the loss was made worse by the fact Cleveland, currently holding the final AL wild card berth, twice walked off Detroit in sweeping a doubleheader. Didn\u2019t stop there. Toronto won for the sixth time in its last seven games and Houston won for the eighth time in its last 11. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The other teams battling for the final playoff spots have gotten hot. The Rangers remain tepid. As a result, they find themselves three games back in the AL West, matching their greatest deficit of the season, and two games back in the hunt for the wild card race with Toronto sitting between them and Cleveland. \u00a0<\/p>\n
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One thing you can say with consistency about this Rangers offense: When it\u2019s been down, well, it\u2019s been out. They don\u2019t come back. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Yes, D\u00edaz\u2019s grand slam provided a momentary glimmer, as did his ninth-inning sacrifice fly, but the Rangers have been among the worst comeback teams in baseball this year. Their 24 come-from-behind wins rank as the fifth fewest in baseball, ahead of only the Los Angeles Angels, Pittsburgh, Detroit and San Francisco.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They entered the game with the sixth-worst OPS when trailing in games and the 27th most runs in innings 7-9. They do work early or not at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what made Friday\u2019s loss sting even worse. The offense did do work late. And it was still for naught. Rocker, whom the Rangers pushed from starting into a bulk relief role to try to optimize his abilities, entered the game in the third, gave up a game-tying homer to the second batter he faced, then gave up the go-ahead homer with two outs in the fourth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It got worse. Facing the top of the order for a second time, Rocker allowed three straight doubles. The first came after falling behind Yandy Diaz 3-and-1 and having to come over the plate. The next two came on 0-2 pitches to Jonathan Aranda and Junior Caminero. When the dust cleared from the inning, Tampa Bay scored four times to take a 6-1 lead. \u00a0<\/p>\n
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It would be easy to assume Rocker, who has passed 130 innings for the season and doubled his season total from last year, is tired. Perhaps he is. The velocity didn\u2019t show it, though, Schumaker said. Perhaps the execution did.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe threw it into their hot zones,\u201d Schumaker said. \u201cHe threw it there a few times and paid for it. There were some really good pitches made. His [velocity] was good. The slider shape was good. But the top four hitters in their lineup, they are going to make you pay if you make mistake. And he made a few of them.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n
Said Rocker: \u201cI can live with solo homers. But I had a lot of guys in the hole. When you get bled to death with four runs, that\u2019s something I can\u2019t let happen. Whenever I’m called to take the ball, I try to go out there and compete to the fullest that I can. And tonight I didn’t do it. That was on me. I did not get the job done for the team.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite all that, the Rangers nearly did make a big comeback. Diaz, hitting ninth, hit a one-out laser of a grand slam in the seventh to draw them within one run. Justin Foscue followed with a single to bring up the club\u2019s biggest offensive threat: Corey Seager. But he bounced into a double play. \u00a0<\/p>\n
In the ninth, after\u00a0Silseth allowed the top three hitters in the Rays\u2019 lineup to manufacture a run in the top half of the inning, the Rangers\u2019 first two hitters walked before Tampa Bay closer Bryan Baker left the game with an injury. The Rangers played small ball and generated a run on Diaz\u2019s sac fly, but Foscue popped up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cAt this point of the season, it’s about winning games,\u201d Schumaker said. \u201cWithin one run, we felt good about keeping it there and giving ourselves a chance to score one run in the ninth. It’s hard to score two against a closer. It was an exciting game, but, you know, we\u2019re trying to win games.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n
They are trying. Just not particularly succeeding. Especially after they fall behind.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Rangers pitcher Chase Silseth (63) turns the ball over to manager Skip Schumaker as Cody Freeman, left,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[4805,5,4,297,2550,68,2551,2549,87966,88018],"class_list":["post-797106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa-bay-rays","tag-article","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-rays","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tampabay","tag-tampabayrays","tag-tp-skip-schumaker","tag-tp-corey-seager"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117217387108933231","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}