ARLINGTON, Texas — On April 17, the Texas Rangers were coming off their first series win in Minute Maid Park against the Astros in five years. They were riding high; they were in first place in the American League West division, and they were about to play a nine-game stretch of games against the Kansas City Royals, Oakland A’s, and Cincinnati Reds, who went a combined 187-299 in 2022.
Ten days later, that stretch of “easy” games is over, and Texas finished 5-4 in those nine games. To make matters worse, they were not only swept out of Cincinnati while losing two games via walk-off, but the Reds were in the midst of a six-game losing streak heading into the series with Texas. Everything was lined up in the Rangers’ favor, and the series became a disaster for them.
So what went wrong for the Rangers? On a crossover edition of Locked On Rangers, host Brice Paterik was joined by the cohosts of Locked On Reds, Steve Offenbaker and Jeff Carr, to review the series.
Paterik said, “This is an unacceptable result to this series.” He added, “The Reds and the Rangers have been in about the same level of competency the last few years, and now there are expectations on the Rangers. They were exceeding them heading into the series.”
The Rangers had won two of three from the A’s before heading to Cincinnati, and Paterik joked about wishing the Rangers had swept the A’s but added that Rangers fans expected at least the same result against the Reds. Instead, the Rangers were swept and lost by a total of four runs.
They were also close games and games that the Rangers could have won if not for their bullpen. From the Rangers’ perspective, the worst game of the three was the middle game on Tuesday, in which Texas had a 6-1 lead heading into the bottom of the eighth inning.
A combination of Cole Ragans and Ian Kennedy gave up six runs on five hits, and the Reds took a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
The Rangers came up in the top of the ninth, and Reds righthander Alexis Diaz worked around a single and a stolen base to strike out two and end the game on a ground out by Adolis Garcia.
Two walk-off victories by the Reds bookended the sweep. On Monday, the Rangers had a 6-4 lead heading into the bottom of the eighth when reliever Dane Dunning loaded the bases with a walk.
Then Bruce Bochy brought in José LeClerc, who issued two walks with the bases loaded to allow the Reds to tie the game. Then LeClerc started the bottom of the ninth with a walk to Jonathan India, scoring after a passed ball and a single.
Paterik was quick to point out how the Rangers have had a lot of first-time managers in the past decade or so—he mentioned Ron Washington, Chris Woodward, and Jeff Bannister specifically.
And that Bochy is more of a tactical manager than some of the previous skippers and that while the bullpen moves didn’t work in this series, they were still the correct moves to make.
He said, “It was a tough series, and there's no getting around it. And it’s one you really wanted to get. We got nicked up. So this one where we’ve got to head home and reset here right now and get back to our game … there's nothing to be concerned about. We’ve got a lot of baseball left. These guys will bounce back. We will have to play our best ball but no one is concerned and we will continue to get better.”
The Rangers have no time to wallow in this sweep because they are returning home and playing four games against the New York Yankees.
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