ARLINGTON — It's not just that the Rangers lost far more than they won last month.
That said, even its few victories have been, well, a little jarring.
Look, nothing has come easy for Texas since mid-August. Not even a good thing. Heading into Sunday's series finale against the Oakland Athletics at Globe Life Field, the Rangers have won five games since Aug. 16, four of which were by one point. One required a walk-off home run. The other required a wild pitch to score. Each win came with the added challenge of tiptoeing around an implosion-prone bullpen.
The remaining 16 games in that period were all losses. That included an eight-game losing streak and a historic pounding by Houston.
Uncomfortable. And totally deflated.
So when the Rangers clinched a one-run victory over the Athletics on a wild pitch on Saturday, the phrase “we'll take it” was commonly adopted in Texas.
But Sunday's victory? They wouldn't just take it. They may have needed it.
The Rangers defeated Oakland 9-4 on Sunday, clinching their first series win since August 28-30. This was the Rangers' highest margin of victory since they beat the Los Angeles Angels 12-0 on August 12th. The team's top batter behaved like the world's best hitter. The bullpen recorded zeros across the board. Manager Bruce Bochy didn't have to sweat making pitching changes or offensive line changes late in the game.
Something he is grateful for.
“Trust me,” Bochy said. “As a manager, that's what you want.”
Especially at this time of year. The Rangers will play four games in Canada starting Monday against the Toronto Blue Jays, who are 1.5 games behind them in the AL wild-card standings. They will then play three games in Cleveland before returning for their final homestand of the regular season.
Even though everyone on the team has felt that way since the Rangers lost their division lead at the end of August, a decisive development awaits.
Either way, Sunday was a good day for the Rangers to get back a little bit to who they were in the first half.
“We won the ball game, scored a lot of runs and held the lead,” second baseman Marcus Semien said. “We want to build on that. What's happened in the past has happened in the past. We can dwell on that, or we can focus on what's going to happen. What's next. I think I can focus on that.”
Thanks to Semien for doing a good part of it. He went 4-for-5 with two home runs and a double, achieving his second four-hit multi-home run in a homestand. He hit Luis Medina's first-pitch sinker 396 feet into the left-field seats in the first inning for his franchise-record eighth lead-off home run of the season, and in the sixth he hit his second of the game off Adrian Martinez's first-pitch slider. . It gave the Rangers an 8-4 lead.
Corey Seager followed Semien with his 30th home run one at-bat later, giving the Rangers a 9-4 lead. Seager became the third Rangers player to hit 30 or more home runs in consecutive seasons in his first two years with the Rangers.
Semien leads the AL with 166 hits. Seager leads the American League with a batting average of .336.
When everything goes well, like it did Sunday, there's not much reason to stress.
“His at-bats haven't been that bad,” Seager said of Semien. “Even when he’s not at his best, he’s just out there practicing hard, seeing the pitches and trying to get the lineup moving.”
The Rangers scored three times in the first inning, once on Semien's solo hit and twice on Robbie Grossman's double. They scored again in the fifth inning on Nathaniel Rowe's two-run run, with Semien (fielder's choice) and Seager (double) scoring. Leody Taveras led off with a single in the sixth inning and scored on Josh Smith's triple. Rookie Evan Carter scored Smith on a sacrifice fly in his third MLB game, and the lineup returned to Semián.
So the offense got back on track. But what about this? So was the bullpen. After starter Jon Gray pitched just 2 2/3 innings and gave up four runs (three earned) on four hits and two walks, Andrew Heaney, Jose Leclerc, Brock Burke and Cody Bradford. The quartet combined for 6 1/3 innings. A scoreless inning.
“They put up a really good fight,” Bochy said. “I’m glad we were able to do a series after a long time.”
Hey, enough about the past. Semien said.
They go to Toronto.
“I thought it was really important to at least take this series,” Bochy said. “I think heading into Toronto, the team we're playing against, we're going to try and swagger a little bit to get some momentum on offense. They need to feel good about themselves in order to win some games. I have to.”
Twitter/X: @McFarland_Shawn
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