<\/p>\n
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)<\/p>\n
Abbie Parr\/AP Photo\/Abbie Parr<\/p>\n
MINNEAPOLIS \u2013 It must end this way. \u00a0<\/p>\n
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Nobody ever knew what to make of the Rangers<\/a> this season, least of all themselves. They have spent the entire season without a real identity. Only Sunday\u2019s regular-season finale will determine how they are remembered. They\u2019ll either be the most fortunate team in history to win a division title, or they\u2019ll fail to win the most winnable division ever<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n But maybe in a rain-delayed 6-2 win over Minnesota<\/a> Saturday that kept their season alive, they found something to latch on to. Doesn\u2019t necessarily need to be permanent. Just needs to last through Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cI think the identity is what you just saw tonight,\u201d Skip Schumaker said. \u201cWe\u2019ve played some tough games here or there, but those guys aren\u2019t 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.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n To his point: On Saturday, the Rangers got 4 2\/3 innings and 71 pitches from Nathan Eovaldi, who hadn\u2019t 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. \u00a0<\/p>\n 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. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat was an incredible fight to the end,\u201d Schumaker said. \u201cMultiple guys banged up that did not want to come out of the game. They knew what was at stake. That\u2019s what it\u2019s all about. That\u2019s why I\u2019m so proud to be the manager of this team.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n 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<\/a>, 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. \u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Should we be surprised that neither team has blazed its way down the stretch? Probably not. It seemed at the season\u2019s outset that Rangers\u2019 and Astros\u2019 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\u2019d not return for 2027. Nobody expected Seattle to simply abdicate.\u00a0<\/p>\n That the Rangers can still make the final day of the season matter is a miracle. In the last two weeks alone, they\u2019ve lost their top two hitters, in terms of OPS, to broken hands<\/a>, the result of being hit by pitches. Josh Jung<\/a>, who\u2019d only returned from injury 10 days ago, was hit in the first inning Friday by a pitch from Joe Ryan. \u00a0<\/p>\n The Rangers haven\u2019t 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\u2019s work this month. They\u2019ve averaged just under 4 2\/3 innings per game since Sept. 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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\u2019s date with the Athletics. \u00a0<\/p>\n And it gave the Rangers one more chance to rally around something. They recognized it. Better late than never. \u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cThis is what you want,\u201d said Nimmo, who exited the game for defense in the ninth, but also expects to play Sunday. \u201cIt’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.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is all you can ask for,\u201d said Jake Burger, who hit his 28th homer to cap the Rangers\u2019 scoring. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter what it looks like through the entire year; if you are going into Game 162 with something to play for, that\u2019s all you can ask for. It can look as ugly or as pretty as you want, but we\u2019re here to compete and if you give yourself a chance at the end of the year, that\u2019s special.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It will come down to the last day of the season. It had to.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Rangers relief pitcher Jacob Latz, left, and catcher Danny Jansen, right, shake hands after a baseball game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2393],"tags":[5,4,149,1567,69,3240,83514],"class_list":["post-815261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas-rangers","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-rangers","tag-texas","tag-texas-rangers","tag-texasrangers","tag-tp-texas-rangers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117341093083990431","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815261","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=815261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}