No Weakness in Texas Rangers Batting Order
Don’t envy Pittsburgh Pirates manager Derek Shelton as his team prepares to host the Texas Rangers on Monday. Or any of the other managers on the upcoming road trip.
They’ll have to send pitchers out to face a batting order that might be the best in baseball right now.
The Rangers started what could be seen as their regular batting order in a Sunday’s 13-3 victory over the Colorado Rockies.
If you’re looking for a lineup hole, a hitter to pitch around to get to another, weaker hitter, well, good luck.
Rangers manager Bruce Bochy knows it.
“It’s very versatile, a very balanced lineup,” Bochy said.
And hard to contain, as the rest of baseball is finding out. The Rangers’ 29-17 record is tied for the second-best 46-game start in team history behind the 30-16 mark in 1998.
The American League West leaders have outscored their opponents 297-189 (+108) so far, the highest run differential in team history through 46 games, overtaking the 2012 Rangers’ plus-90 in 2012. The Rangers’ 297 runs are the most in baseball, averaging a MLB-high 6.46 runs per game.
With the Rangers’ 13-run output on Sunday, they now lead the Majors in games with 10 or more runs scored with 12. That’s just the seventh time since 1901 that has happened through 46 games. The Rangers were one of them. They did it in 2000.
Entering the road trip, eight of the nine hitters the Rangers started on Sunday are batting .250 or better. Three of them — Marcus Semien, Corey Seager and Ezequiel Duran— are batting better than .300. The only one under .250 is Robbie Grossman, who was batting .247.
Semien, the leadoff hitter, went 2-for-3 with three RBI. Seager batted second and hit his third home run on Sunday as he surges back from injury. Duran went 0-for-3, but drew a walk to help spark a five-run inning and batted eighth.
That’s how deep this batting order is right now. Duran is quite possibly the hottest hitter in the entire order and he’s batting eighth.
“Duran’s been unbelievable,” Semien said. “Just the swings he’s putting on some really good pitches.”
Semien has proven to be the spark at the top. He blends power (seven home runs) and speed (43 runs), and is also the second-best hitter in the AL with runners in scoring position.
The only player ahead of him? Rangers catcher Jonah Heim who is batting .296 and better than .500 in RISP situations. He bats sixth. Thanks in part to the pair, the Rangers lead the Majors in batting average with runners in scoring position at nearly .340.
Pitchers like Andrew Heaney — who benefited from the run support in winning his third game of the season — love it.
“The ability for them to just be relentless on other teams, it’s just a great feeling when you’re on the mound” Heaney said. “You can go out there have a bit of a sigh of relief, just relax and go get outs. It’s just been great.”
In the clean-up spot, Adolis García leads the AL in home runs (14) and RBI (49), the latter topping all of baseball.
First baseman Nathaniel Lowe — who hits third — has 15 doubles, which is among the best in baseball in that category.
Third baseman Josh Jung, who hit a home run on Sunday and bats fifth, was the American League Rookie of the Month for April and has hits in nine of his last 10 games.
This batting order is doing things that can only be compared to the Rangers of the late 1990s and the 2010-2011 World Series teams at the moment. And it’s not even June.
“It’s a tough lineup to navigate,” Semien said.
The issues aren’t just sheer numbers, either. It’s the lineup’s composition. Seager and Lowe are left-handers surrounded by the right-handed-hitting Semien and García. The bottom half of the order is filled with switch-hitters — Heim, Grossman and Leody Taveras.
“I like the depth in it,” Bochy said. “You’re looking at three switch hitters that are good from both sides, pretty balanced, with (Duran) in there. It’s one of those lineups where you can move those guys anywhere, but with what we have, they’re at seven, eight and nine.”
Taveras is emblematic of the entire Rangers’ offense right now. Batting .296, on other teams Taveras might hit in the top half of the order.
For this team, he bats ninth. And thrives.
Reinforcements are coming. Catcher Mitch Garver and outfielder Travis Jankowski are set to start rehab assignments this week. Jankowski was batting better than .300 before he was hurt.
Figuring out how to get those players in the lineup will be a nice problem to have.
“I think that Boch is going to have to get creative with getting all of these hot bats in the lineup,” Semien said.
The Rangers open up a nine-game road trip Monday night at the Pittsburgh Pirates with Dane Dunning (4-0, 1.69) on the hill. Luis Ortiz (0-2, 5.63) starts for the Pirates, with first pitch scheduled for 5:35 p.m. CT.
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You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
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