The Texas Rangers’ playoff hopes may finally be coming to an end, with the team trailing the Houston Astros by 11 games in the American League West Division.
The Rangers began the year slowly following their win in the 2023 World Series as the team fell under .500 after less than two months of games and have been unable to recover all season.
This slow start prompted the organization to consider a fire sale leading into the trade deadline, but a stretch of winning put the Rangers less than five games behind first place and resulted in the team making few moves during the deadline.
While management clearly believed in the team’s ability to turn it on in the second half of the season, the Rangers have been unable to find their stride. They have a record of 6-11 in August.
Now, the Rangers sit 11 games behind the Astros for first place in the division and 12.5 games behind the Minnesota Twins for the final wild-card spot.
Houston is currently on pace to win roughly 89 games during the regular season, meaning the Rangers have a long way to go to keep their playoff hopes alive.
With just 36 games remaining in the season for the Rangers, the team will have to finish the year with a record of 31-5 just to be in the conversation for first place in the division.
Additionally, Texas must finish at least one full game ahead of Houston to claim the division title since the Astros hold the tiebreaker in the season series with a record of 7-6 against the Rangers.
To keep it simple, the Rangers are likely out of the playoff race and the front office must begin looking ahead to how the team can improve during the offseason.
Rangers general manager Chris Young discussed the team’s “embarrassing” season so far during an appearance on GBag Nation on 105.3 The Fan and said he just wants the team to “go out and play winning baseball from here on out.”
“I want us to go play with passion and energy and grit and fight and determination and F-you behind them because this season’s been embarrassing for us. This is not what we expected, and I expect our players to be as equally embarrassed as I am about how we’ve played,” he explained, according to The Dallas Morning News.
“So I want to see us come out and fight to the finish line, whatever that means in terms of the standings or the record, that’ll happen naturally if we just go out and play good baseball. And I wanna see some improvement as we go here. I know this team is capable of more than they’ve shown, and my expectation is that we do that in these last six weeks,” he said.
Although the Rangers look unlikely to make another run to the World Series, shortstop Corey Seager said after Monday’s win over the Pirates that the team must keep pushing because baseball is “always going to challenge you.”
“And we’ve been challenged, and now you see how you respond. You haven’t played well. You put yourself in a hole. But that doesn’t mean you just give in. And you can still continue to play well and try to play well,” he said, according to MLB.com.
Texas has two games remaining in its series against the Pirates before traveling to Cleveland to take on the Guardians, where the Rangers will look to bounce back and keep their playoff hopes alive with an extended winning streak.
