After ‘terrible’ loss to Mets, it’s AL West or bust for the Rangers’ playoff hopes

ARLINGTON — The Rangers began the final week of the season, holding the slimmest of leads in the AL West, and needing a minor miracle to navigate a threadbare pitching staff. 

What they got instead was a catastrophe. 

Pardon the dramatics, but when the word fits, the word fits. No other way to describe a 6-3 loss to the last-place New York Mets that knocked the Rangers from first in the AL to the outside of the playoff race. On a night when the beleaguered pitching staff needed a little help from its friends, it instead got wasteful offense and a jittery defense. Is bad defense just endemic to Arlington? 

Yet this one would have even made Christian Parker cringe. He’s got enough on his plate already. 

Related: Rangers betrayed by their defense at most inopportune time in loss to Mets

The Rangers had four misplays or miscommunications in the first six innings, blowing a slim lead (a metaphor for the division race?) in the process. They involved almost every fielder on the diamond and contributed to four of the Mets’ six runs. The offense, on the other hand, went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position. Corey Seager, the biggest threat in the lineup, twice failed in key situations with runners on base and struck out three times in all. Then again, he wasn’t alone. The Rangers struck out 15 times. 

“It was terrible,” Rangers first baseman Jake Burger, who made one of the misplays, said of the defense. “Our pitchers give us a chance every night, and we’ve got to pick them up. We can’t expect to win the division when we’re playing like that. I don’t think that’s who we are. But we’ve got to flush it and get back tomorrow.” 

“We didn’t make the plays behind the pitchers tonight, and our offense didn’t get anything going either,” manager Skip Schumaker said. “So, a combination of things is why we lost. We’ve just got to flush it quick and get after it tomorrow.” 

Lotta flushing going on. Might be good to have a plumber saved in their contacts, you know, in case the whole thing overflows. And right now it’s filling up fast. 

Consider the playoffs. It’s the AL West or bust. The Rangers are now three games behind Chicago, which currently holds the third wild card spot, and the White Sox hold the tiebreaker. It effectively puts the Rangers’ elimination number at two in the wild card race. 

The AL West ain’t looking so hot either. Houston, which dropped out of first place Saturday and heard from Yordan Alvarez in a players-only meeting the next day, cruised to a 7-0 win over Seattle. It pushed the Astros back into a tie with the Rangers for first in the AL West, but Houston owns the head-to-head tiebreaker. The Rangers have to play a game better than the Astros over the final five. On Wednesday, the Rangers face Mets ace Nolan McLean. It does not get easier.

On Tuesday a slow roller got between Justin Foscue and Seager for a two-out, two-strike, run-scoring hit in the third. An inning later, Ezequiel Duran, still new in center field, nearly charged right into Brandon Nimmo on Francisco Alvarez’s two-out fly ball into the gap. The ball bounced off Nimmo’s glove and allowed New York’s second run to score.  

“Just a miscommunication in the outfield,” Schumaker said. “I think [Duran] maybe was running it down, had a beat on it and might have called it too late right on top of Nimmo.” 

And after the Rangers rallied back to take a 3-2 lead, it got worse just when the Rangers inserted Nathan Eovaldi to protect the lead. After Eovaldi got in trouble with a leadoff double and a walk, old friend Marcus Semien seemed so appreciative of the “Welcome Back” video the Rangers put on the board that he offered a gift in return: A sharp grounder to third baseman Josh Jung. But after Jung stepped on third, his throw across the diamond to complete the double play was soft and errant. Alvarez followed with his second double of the night, scoring two runs. 

Then Alvarez scored on what was ruled a sacrifice fly but was really a foul pop to Burger. He caught it with his back to the bag and quickly pivoted toward home, but he lost his grip on the ball, forcing him to double pump on his throw home. The throw was close, but Danny Jansen couldn’t hold on to the ball, rendering it moot. 

“They’ve been playing fundamentally sound baseball,” Shumaker said. “We made a couple miscues. It cost us and that’s part of the reason why we lost. So again, that’s why we have to flush it.”  

If not, the Rangers are five days from flushing the whole season away, too.