Despite returning home for their first series of the stretch run in August, the Texas Rangers fell back into their old habits in a series loss to the Boston Red Sox.
ARLINGTON, Texas — Coming home after an off day that followed a rough road trip after the trade deadline was supposed to be rejuvenating for the Texas Rangers. While the Rangers have been poor on the road (23-34), they’ve maintained a semblance of their success from 2023 at their home venue so far in 2024 (30-25).
So a date against Boston at Globe Life Field was supposed to infuse both the team and its community with hope and a fresh push toward the playoffs. What happened instead was a repeat of what Texas has been experiencing throughout a befuddling season.
There was one game during the three-game set where the stars aligned and the offense and pitching were on the same page, while the other two games made the Rangers look like anything but defending World Series champions as their season slipped a little further away.
Game 110: Boston 11, Texas 6 (W: Crawford, 7-8, L: Urena, 3-6)Game 111: Boston 4, Texas 7 (W: Leclerc, 5-4, L: Houck, 8-8, Sv: Yates, 20)Game 112: Boston 7, Texas 2 (W: Booser, 2-2, L: Eovaldi, 8-5)
Seager can’t do it alone
Last year, Corey Seager appeared to be on a year-long hot streak. Even through three stints on the injured list, Seager never seemed to relent and was an appointment-viewing, high-level offensive threat that carried the Rangers to October glory.
While that hasn’t carried over fully in 2024, Seager is apparently on a streak of those sorts right now. With 50 games to go, it might be too little, too late, but he will try to shoulder this team down the stretch.
Going 5-for-12 with three homers and four RBI, Seager finished July with a slash of .311/.398/.522 and appears well poised to continue on that run in August. It hasn’t just been Seager who’s struggled to get going for the Rangers’ offense, but he is a driving force behind the entire club, and if anyone can push this team to competitiveness down the stretch, it’s the $325 million man.
Never enough starting pitching
If everything went right, trading Michael Lorenzen ahead of the deadline made all the sense in the world. With Cody Bradford and Dane Dunning back and serving as depth in the bullpen and with Tyler Mahle due back soon and Jacob deGrom set to follow behind him, the Rangers appeared to have too much-starting pitching.
As soon as the front office made the decision that they had starters to spare, they realized the hubris of that thought. A couple of days before Lorenzen was shuttled to the Kansas City Royals, Jon Gray landed on the injured list with another groin strain that will likely cost him several weeks.
Next up, Max Scherzer landed back on the IL with arm fatigue. Could he have shouldered through it to try and help the playoff push? Maybe. At least, that’s what Scherzer expected to do as he told the media that he wasn’t expecting to go on the shelf. Ultimately, however, the Rangers made the decision to protect his arm.
At a point where Texas would appear to need as many healthy arms as possible, sending one of their aces to the IL with the team immediately ahead of them in the standings coming into town seems like a faulty strategy. It should be noted that deGrom has yet to even face hitters.
With three-fifths of their rotation suddenly either gone or injured, the Rangers turned to Cody Bradford and Jose Urena, who were less than fantastic than in previous starting appearances this year, though not entirely unpredictably so.
Bradford, at the time of his injury, had put together three superlative starts in April. Upon returning to the roster, Bradford was shuttled to the bullpen, as the Rangers had a glut of starters. Bradford, in his first start and second appearance overall since coming back from an IL stint that lasted over three months and without having ramped up to a starters’ workload, lasted 3 ⅔ innings, giving up three runs on four hits, including two long balls.
Urena, meanwhile, who has been a rock for the Rangers most anytime he’s been on the mound but hadn’t started a game since the first week of June, was also entirely ineffective over four innings of work. He gave up seven runs on eight hits to set the tone for the series in the opener.
New arms on the mound
With the IL stint for Scherzer, Texas found it a good time to bring up their latest acquisition, left-handed reliever Walter Pennington. Pennington was acquired in the Lorenzen deal and made his Rangers’ debut – his second-ever Major League appearance – in Sunday’s finale.
It took five pitches before Wilyer Abreu drilled one deep to right-center field for his second home run of the day to extend the Red Sox lead at the time from 3-2 to 6-2. Pennington also walked three after retiring two to put himself into hot water again. He did strand the bases loaded, but it was far from a wonderfully memorable debut for Pennington.
Andrew Chafin, recently acquired from the Tigers, also had a less than favorable Rangers’ debut, as he came on in the ninth inning of the series opener and allowed a couple of runs to further Boston’s blowout victory. Chafin at least did bounce back in his second appearance as he retired all three batters that he faced during Saturday’s victory.
Do you think Corey Seager will reach the 30-home run mark in 2024? Share your thoughts with Matt on Twitter @FisherWritesMLB.