Texas Rangers Out of First Place, Further Behind Mariners and Astros in Playoff Odds
The Texas Rangers are finding new and increasingly frustrating ways to lose games.
And with it, their postseason chances continue to fade.
The Rangers fell out of first place in the American League West for the first time since April 8 on Sunday, as they squandered a 5-0 lead in a 7-6 loss to the Minnesota Twins in 13 agonizing innings.
Texas had been in first or tied for first in the division for 148 of the season’s first 149 days.
The Twins were aided by 10 walks, including three straight with two outs in the 13th by recently-recalled reliever Jonathan Hernández to force in the winning run.
“He just lost it,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “He lost his command.”
The Rangers were just 2-for-17 with runners in scoring position, scoring just once over the finale nine innings.
“That came back to get us, too,” Bochy said.
Texas (73-57) is now looking up at the Seattle Mariners (74-56) in the division and in virtual tie with the Houston Astros (74-58) for second place.
The Rangers are 1-9 in their last 10 games – Seattle is 9-1. The only saving grace is Houston is just 4-6 during that stretch.
But what’s happened are the odds of Texas snapping a six-year postseason drought are looking longer with each setback. The Rangers were virtual shoe-ins to make the playoffs before the eight-game losing streak at 95.1%, according to FanGraphs. It’s down to 65.3%.
It’s also dropped from 56.8% to win the AL West to 19.1% in less than two weeks.
The Mariners are barely edging the defending World Series champions to win the West at 40.6% to 39.9%. Houston holds slim percentage advantage (85.5-84.5) in playoff odds over Seattle.
But the Rangers, obviously, aren’t out of it.
“It’s anybody’s division,” Marcus Semien said. “You look at us at the beginning of the year, you look at the division at the beginning of the year and I said the same thing. We’ve got a lot baseball to play this last month. Whoever plays the best baseball will be playing at the end.”
Texas opens a three-game series at the New York Mets on Monday to close out the road trip.
You can follow Art Garcia on Twitter @ArtGarcia92.
Catch up with Inside the Rangers on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram.
