DALLAS — The Chicago White Sox are having an historically bad season. With just 27 wins as we near August, the Southsiders were just what the doctor ordered for a Texas club that was sitting directly on the fence ahead of next Tuesday’s trade deadline.
Despite the disparity of league’s worst team against defending champions, three of four of these games were close affairs. But the Texas Rangers, who had been playing like anything but champions for much of the season, were able to win each of those one-run games and even pitched in a rare blowout victory.
With decisions coming, a sweep is a sweep and when your inter-divisional rivals are playing each other and beating each other down, that means some ground was gained. To that end, the Rangers are now just 2.5 games out of first place in the hotly contested American League West.
Game 100: Chicago 3, Texas 4 (W: Hernandez, 3-0, L: Wilson, 1-6)
Game 101: Chicago 2, Texas 3 (W: Gray, 5-4, L: Crochet, 6-7, Sv: Yates, 18)
Game 102: Chicago 2, Texas 10 (W: Eovaldi, 7-4, L: Flexen, 2-10)
Game 103: Chicago 1, Texas 2 (W: Scherzer, 2-3, L: Cannon, 1-5, Sv: Robertson, 2)
Walk-off Wyatt
Wyatt Langford, in the month of June, was the hottest hitter among those in the Rangers lineup. With a .309/.368/.526 slash line, 22 RBI and 11 runs scored, Langford took home American League Rookie of the Month awards for the season’s third month.
In July, however, the 2023 first round draft pick cooled off with an extended slump bookending the All-Star break, but when the chips were down in extra innings of the opening game of this series, the rookie delivered.
In the bottom of the 10th, with the Rangers and White Sox tied at 3 runs apiece, Langford came to the plate after Chicago opted to intentionally walk both Corey Seager and Josh Smith to load the bases for Langford. The rookie, who had been hitting just above the Mendoza line in July, ripped a ball off the left field corner to end it with a rare Rangers walk-off.
Crack in the armor
Kirby Yates had not given up a home run all season entering this series with Chicago. Sporting a 1.02 ERA, Yates had been as automatic as they come for a closer. But in trying to preserve a 2-2 tie in Monday’s opener, Yates gave up his first home run of the season in what looked like a devastating moment.
Yates’ first mistake was a long shot to left field hit by Paul DeJong to give the White Sox a ninth inning lead. But the season remained charmed for Yates as, even though he coughed up the lead for the first time all year, the Rangers produced one of their few late-inning rallies with a Jonah Heim RBI single in the 9th tying the game before Langford’s game-winning hit in extras.
The bounceback
Each of the starting pitchers that took the hill in this series were eying a rebound effort. Whether it was Max Scherzer only going two innings and giving up four runs in his first outing of the second half against Baltimore or Nathan Eovaldi giving up a season-high six runs in the first game on the other side of the All-Star break, the Rangers’ rotation needed some good starts.
This rotation is still missing a couple of key pieces with Tyler Mahle and Jacob deGrom rehabbing, but in order to convince management to let the team make a run at the playoffs again, and to keep the team in games, the arms have to keep producing quality starts. Against Chicago, it was all quality.
Michael Lorenzen started the series opener, going five innings and giving up two runs. Jon Gray went 7 ⅔ innings of one run ball in his longest outing since May 5th. Eovaldi gave the team seven innings of two-run ball, and Scherzer rounded it out in the finale by giving up just one run in six innings.
Texas needed those performances out of the rotation in what ended up being a closely contested series with three one-run wins.
Uncommon Mr. Smith
The unofficial first half MVP for the Rangers had himself another series to remember. Even though he went hitless in the first game of the series, Josh Smith did get on base via a couple of walks, including an intentional one in extra innings ahead of Wyatt Langford’s winner.
Over the rest of the series, Smith went 5-for-11 with a double and three RBIs. He has been the Rangers most consistent hitter for virtually the entire season and that appears to be carrying over to the second half. Smith had cooled off some since a torrid June, but even “cooled off,” the Rangers’ third baseman has a .267/.384/.450 slash line for the month of July, a respectable line for any hitter, much less one that opened the year as the last guy on the bench.
Riding a five-game winning streak, Texas next travels north of the border to face another last place team. The Rangers have an opportunity to put talk of being sellers far in the past with a strong effort against the Toronto Blue Jays this weekend.
Do you think the Rangers are back on track following the sweep of Chicago? Share your thoughts with Matt on Twitter @FisherWritesMLB.
