{"id":82837,"date":"2025-06-06T04:49:12","date_gmt":"2025-06-06T04:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/82837\/"},"modified":"2025-06-06T04:49:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T04:49:12","slug":"even-with-marcus-semiens-resurgence-texas-rangers-fall-victim-to-the-curse-of-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/82837\/","title":{"rendered":"Even with Marcus Semien\u2019s resurgence, Texas Rangers fall victim to the Curse of 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA – Not even the rise of Marcus Semien<\/a> can break the Rangers<\/a> from the Curse of 2025: The one where nobody covers first base. <\/p>\n

On Thursday, the Rangers lost to Tampa Bay 4-3 on a two-run, walkoff routine grounder to second, which is really the only way to describe Taylor Walls\u2019 game-winning single. <\/p>\n

While Semien fielded the ball easily, neophyte first baseman Josh Smith had broken towards second and reliever Robert Garcia was late to break to first. It allowed Walls to reach and forced in the tying run. As Semien looked hopelessly at first, Junior Caminero raced home ahead of the throw for the win. <\/p>\n

The Rangers blew a 3-1 lead heading to the ninth that had been fashioned on homers, two of them from the scorching hot Semien. <\/p>\n

Rangers<\/p>\n

Be the smartest Rangers fan. Get the latest news.<\/p>\n

A week ago, Semien\u2019s batting average had fallen to .173 and his .485 OPS was one of the worst of the last decade for a regular player a third of the way through the season. <\/p>\n

On Friday, after a two-homer, three-hit performance in the Rangers\u2019 3-2 win over Tampa Bay, Semien will look up to see his batting average start with a \u201c2\u2033 and his OPS begin with a \u201c6.\u201d <\/p>\n

Semien\u2019s fifth-inning homer broke a tie game and his two-out homer in the seventh extended the Rangers\u2019 lead and only further served to fuel his current week-long tear during which he\u2019s gone 11 for 18 with five extra-base hits. He had four extra base hits for the season entering last Friday. <\/p>\n

It was also Semien\u2019s first multi-homer game since September 2023 and his first game with multiple extra-base hits in more than a year. He had a homer and a double on May 7, 2024. <\/p>\n

Most importantly, Semien seems to have gotten back to doing what he has traditionally done best<\/a>: Pulling the ball in the air with authority. Both of his homers on Thursday landed over the tight left-field corner at George M. Steinbrenner Field. <\/p>\n

Related:5 things we learned about the Rangers this week: Is Marcus Semien back to his best self?<\/a><\/p>\n

He broke a 1-1 tie by leading off the fifth inning by yanking a high fastball from Ryan Pepiot into the left field corner. Two innings later, he got a sweeper in and hit it to almost the exact same spot. <\/p>\n

Jake Burger<\/a> homered into the humid air in the third to tie the game. Rangers starter Jake Leiter<\/a>, who sweated through five gutty innings, allowed only a second-inning homer to Junior Caminero. <\/p>\n

Leiter, who lowered his ERA to 3.48, allowed a leadoff double to Brandon Lowe in the fourth and had runners on the corners with no outs, but got a pair of strikeouts sandwiched around a foul pop to escape the inning. Semien responded by leading off the fifth with his first homer.<\/p>\n

Find more Rangers coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA – Not even the rise of Marcus Semien can break the Rangers from the Curse of 2025:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[4805,5,721,400,386,4,3245,149,297,185,2550,68,2551,2549,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-82837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-rays","8":"tag-article","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-jack-leiter","11":"tag-jake-burger","12":"tag-marcus-semien","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-mlb-texas-rangers","15":"tag-rangers","16":"tag-rays","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-tampa-bay","19":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","20":"tag-tampabay","21":"tag-tampabayrays","22":"tag-texas-rangers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114634618548944428","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82837","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=82837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}