The Texas Rangers lost yet another one, and it’s time. Time for that panic button.
The Texas Rangers need just seven more wins to ensure their best record since 2016, and yet they only have themselves “to blame” for the expectations they created for 2023.
This is a World Series-caliber team, if they can only make the playoffs.
What felt like a given 30 days ago now looks as stable as a weather forecast in the early summer; pretty sure it will be hot, but there may just be some rain and thundershowers to ruin your outdoor weekend plans.
The Rangers lost in Arizona on Monday night, their fifth straight defeat, but remain in first place in the American League West by 1 1/2 games, over the team brought to you by Nikon Cameras.
The Rangers have 37 games remaining in a regular season where they have been the single biggest surprise in baseball.
All things are possible.
A winning record. A division title. A wild card. An American League pennant. A World Series. A World Series trophy. Missing the playoffs.
Of the six teams in first place in their respective divisions, the Rangers’ lead is the slimmest. Unlike the other five first-place teams, the Rangers have not one but two teams behind them that are an issue.
The Rangers have a Houston problem. The Rangers have a Seattle problem.
Their biggest problem, however, is the same team that dumped them from the playoffs in each of the Rangers’ last two postseason appearances, in 2015 and 2016.
The Toronto Blue Jays are in a position to completely screw this all up for the Rangers.
Looking at the standings and the Rangers are in good position to make the playoffs even if they don’t win their division.
Six teams make it to the postseason; three division winners, three wild cards.
The Astros and Mariners could leap over the Rangers, and Texas is still is in the postseason.
There is that scary, real, chance the Blue Jays, 8 1/2 games out of first place in the East, could catch the Rangers. Toronto is only three wins behind Texas for what would the final wild card spot.
Winning the division is a nice banner, but in recent years it’s been repeatedly proven that you do not need to win it to reach the World Series.
MLB eliminating the one-game wild card game in favor of a best-of-three first round series for seeds No. 3 through No. 6 has made navigating the playoffs a much more pleasant proposition.
Since MLB added a wild card team in 1995, 14 times has a wild card team made the World Series.
The Rangers as a wild card team would hardly qualify as a disappointment. Even if all the Rangers do is post a winning record, this season should still not qualify as a disappointment.
All conversations about the Rangers in 2023 must begin with, “They won 68 games in 2022.”
However, this team has spent too much money, played too well, and come too far to settle for reaching reasonable expectations applied in April.
It’s Aug. 22, and this has been a first place team for months. A first-place team on Aug. 22 should make the postseason.
To do otherwise is a painful gag.
But this team has some real pain to overcome.
The injury to third baseman Josh Jung hasn’t been catastrophic, but the size of his absence grows daily. He should be back from his fractured thumb before the end of the regular season.
The outfield has issues.
Catcher Jonah Heim avoided season-ending surgery to his wrist, but he has not looked like an All-Star since he came off the disabled list on Aug. 13.
Relief pitcher Will Smith, so good in the first half, has looked like a career journeyman in the second.
The teams behind the Rangers have their own sets of issues, and while Houston has the legacy the team that should be feared is the one in Seattle. The Mariners are finally putting it together, and they are a threat to every team in baseball.
The Rangers will play seven of their final 10 regular-season games against the Mariners, including the final four in Seattle.
However this all plays out, the season has been fun as the Rangers are playing relevant baseball in August and will into September for the first time since 2016.
In April, no one expected this team to be in first place on Aug. 22, but they’re here for a reason.
They can win the World Series.
All they have to do is make the playoffs first.
