{"id":1969972,"date":"2025-08-20T06:41:38","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T06:41:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=1969972"},"modified":"2025-08-20T06:41:38","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T06:41:38","slug":"rangers-once-again-unable-to-cover-up-for-feeble-offense-as-post-deadline-slide-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/rangers-once-again-unable-to-cover-up-for-feeble-offense-as-post-deadline-slide-continues\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers once again unable to cover up for feeble offense as post-deadline slide continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. \u2014 We\u2019ve arrived at the finger-pointing stage of the season. <\/p>\n

Blame the offense. <\/p>\n

At the very least, it\u2019s a convenient way to wrap up whatever is left of the Rangers<\/a>\u2019 season and move on to something equally silly, like, oh, the Cowboys<\/a>, for example. Also, it\u2019s pretty accurate. Virtually every issue the Rangers have encountered in what may go down as the most underachieving season in team history falls back on the offense. Or, rather, the lack thereof.<\/p>\n

Take Tuesday night\u2019s 5-2 loss to Kansas City, the Rangers\u2019 fourth in five games of a crucial seven-game road trip. There was plenty to ponder, like whether or not starter Merrill Kelly should have pitched the seventh (spoiler: he couldn\u2019t, due to hamstring cramps), using Cole Winn for two extremely high-leverage innings and even whether or not the Rangers should have tried to bunt with rookie Cody Freeman at the plate and slow-footed Jonah Heim at first base. The bottom line is that\u2019s all secondary. <\/p>\n

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Rangers<\/p>\n

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When you get four hits and score two runs \u2014 and when that offensive output is the norm rather than the aberration \u2014 it places extra stress and attention on every other aspect of the game, from game management to pitch selection. But the root cause is simple: Everybody feels they have to do their job perfectly because the offense leaves no room for any other mistakes. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019d call it stress,\u201d is how Rangers manager Bruce Bochy started to answer, but by the end he was acknowledging that: <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough when you can\u2019t have a little bigger margin of error. It\u2019s tough when you continue to sit on two or three runs.\u201d<\/p>\n

After another bummer year, Rangers\u2019 resemblance to 2023 World Series team is only in name<\/a><\/article>\n

Which is exactly where the Rangers\u2019 offense has sat all month, while the AL standings go zooming past them. Tuesday\u2019s loss was their 13th loss in 18 games since the July 31 trade deadline<\/a>. The Rangers have scored three or fewer runs in 11 of those games. They\u2019ve won one. For the year, the failed offense has managed three or fewer runs in 65 of 127 games, giving them the fifth most games with three or fewer. The Rangers are on pace to score three or fewer in 83 games, more than half the season. It\u2019s a lot of numbers to digest, sure. But it all says the same thing: The offense doesn\u2019t do its job. <\/p>\n

And because this is no longer a trend, but the norm, it forces every other facet of the game to function with perfection. <\/p>\n

So the fact that Kelly allowed only two hits, both solo homers, through six innings wasn\u2019t enough. Kelly, who has dealt with hamstring cramps throughout his career, notified the Rangers he was starting to feel small cramps after the fifth. He gave the Rangers another inning to allow the bullpen time to get ready. <\/p>\n

The offense responded by going in order in the top of the seventh of a tie game. <\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t enough that Cole Winn got a strikeout and a double-play after entering with the bases loaded and no outs in the seventh. His first pitch had gotten away from him, hit Jonathan India and forced in the go-ahead run. The Rangers responded by getting the leadoff hitter on for the first time in the game in the eighth. Bochy elected to have right-handed Cody Freeman enter the game to hit for lefty Josh Smith against the lefty Angel Zerpa. Freeman is expected to be able to do things like bunt as part of his game, but with Heim at first, the bunt was an even-lower percentage play. Bochy didn\u2019t have a pinch runner for Heim at first because he\u2019d already used both Josh Jung and Ezequiel Duran against Zerpa in the seventh. They did not get the ball out of the infield. <\/p>\n

\u2018Change is never easy\u2019: Josh Jung is on notice if he wants to stick with Texas Rangers<\/a><\/article>\n

In the bottom of the eighth, Winn ended up in a bad matchup against Bobby Witt Jr., whom the pitcher says he\u2019s never retired in the majors or minors. We\u2019ll take his word on the minors. After Witt hit a two-run homer to ice the game in the eighth, he\u2019s 3-for-3 in the majors. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe all have an understanding of the situation,\u201d Winn said. \u201cThere\u2019s a little feeling of it being more important.\u201d <\/p>\n

Winn was talking about the Rangers\u2019 declining position in the playoff race. We think. But it certainly could apply to the other situation: Having to cover up for a failed offense.<\/p>\n

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