ARLINGTON, Texas — In the category of missed opportunities, of which the Texas Rangers have experienced many despite an otherwise successful season so far, certainly the opener of this series will stand out.
The Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners won their respective games on Monday night and inched ever closer to the Rangers for control of the AL West. The Rangers, meanwhile, blew two leads – one each by their co-closer duo of Aroldis Chapman and Will Smith – to lose in heartbreaking fashion.
It was yet another microcosm of the season – a game featuring stellar starting pitching, a persistent offense and painfully bad bullpen performances. As we enter the last six weeks of the season, the teams that were built and bought for the postseason start to show themselves, and the Rangers are clinging to first place by a thread.
- Game 125: Texas 3, Arizona 4 in 11 innings (W: Ginkel, 7-0, L: Smith, 1-5)
- Game 126: Texas 3, Arizona 6 (W: Gallen, 14-5, L: Gray, 8-7, Sv: Sewald, 27)
Three Up
Montgomery masterful – Jordan Montgomery was a pleasant cherry on top at the trade deadline after Texas acquired Max Scherzer. But as Andrew Heaney continues to look less and less likely to stay in the rotation upon Nathan Eovalid’s anticipated return, the impact of Montgomery as the rotation’s sole lefty is becoming more and more apparent.
In the opener of the brief two-game set against the Diamondbacks, Montgomery looked every bit like he belonged among the ranks with Scherzer and Eovaldi. The lefty held the Diamondbacks scoreless on just four hits over eight incredibly strong innings of work. He struck out six, only to see his performance wasted when the bullpen couldn’t stick the landing.
In four starts with the Rangers, Montgomery has a 1.73 ERA and has gone at least 6 innings in each game, allowing no more than 1 run.
Lowe, Lowe, Lowe – Nathaniel Lowe, at the conclusion of the series, has a five-game hitting streak under his belt. It’s his second five-game hitting streak since mid-July. In the opening game, Lowe’s clutch two-out line-drive dropped in front of the Arizona left fielder and resulted in two runs in the top of the 11th to give the Rangers, at the time, a 3-1 lead in what looked to be the game-winning hit until the Diamondbacks rallied for a second time.
Lowe had been having a quiet August, slashing .231/.277/.436, but the five-game hitting streak can hopefully be the thing that gets the reigning first base Silver Slugger going. The offense could use Lowe’s storied second half prowess as others up and down the order have hit a slump.
Leclerc shines – There wasn’t much to love about this two-game set, but seeing Jose Leclerc return to form in the second game was certainly a sight for sore eyes. Coming on in relief of Brock Burke in the 7th inning, Leclerc had his velocity up, getting his four-seamer up to 96, and was able to spot his pitches toward the bottom of the zone, inducing weak contact.
Two innings from the former closer was just what the Rangers needed, after needing to go to the bullpen early and with Aroldis Chapman and Will Smith unavailable in the finale.
Three Down
Who to turn to? – After Montgomery tossed eight exemplary innings, and after co-closer Smith had given up three runs in the loss the day before, manager Bruce Bochy turned to the other co-closer on his roster – fireball thrower Chapman. There was very little room for error in a 1-0 game in the 9th, so the thought to move toward the strike throwing, fastball specialist made sense.
Unfortunately, after a strikeout, Chapman left a 92-MPH split fastball up in the zone, instead of coming at Ketel Marte (hitting .155 in August) with a 100+ MPH sinker, and Marte deposited it deep into the left field seats for the first blown save of the night.
The Rangers’ offense was able to overcome this, though with Lowe’s two-RBI hit in the 11th. That prompted Bochy to turn to the other co-closer after Chapman had gotten through a scoreless 10th. But Smith’s struggles continued, as he gave up a game-tying double followed immediately by a game-winning double.
Smith has now given up nine runs in his nine August appearances, with two blown saves on the month and the second time he’s given up runs in back-to-back outings. Chapman suffered his second blown save with the Rangers, but gave up his first run all month. The timing was just terrible as the co-blown saves from the co-closers meant the losing streak continued.
Silent swings – The Rangers again struggled in a game in which their opponents decided to use primarily relievers against them. Opener Joe Mantiply didn’t even make it out of the first inning, being tasked with only facing the first three batters of the game. But the rest of the bullpen kept the Rangers off balance and limited them to one hit.
While there’s no official stat to track their record in bullpen games, the Rangers have fared poorly in all but one. Texas would garner more hits in the second game of the set but still only managed to scratch across one run through the first six innings while Arizona had put up six runs to make the comeback bid ultimately doomed.
Heim ahead of time – It was supposed to be a happy miracle when it was announced that Rangers’ catcher Jonah Heim was returning from his stint on the injured list with a left wrist tendon strain. Even more impressive was that Heim wasn’t going to go through any rehab games. The switch-hitter would be restricted to just swinging from the left side, so as not to aggravate that tendon, but given his performance since coming back, one might wonder if Heim should have taken some time to properly recuperate the wrist.
Since returning to action on August 13th, Heim is just 2-for-19, and in this Diamondbacks series, the backstop looked even more out of sorts as he struck out three times in the finale. While the valiancy was certainly appreciated, Mitch Garver wasn’t exactly struggling in Heim’s absence, and now, Heim’s spot in the lineup is looking like a hole that the Rangers didn’t have at the start of the season.
Only half a game separates the Rangers from second place Houston. Texas has a travel day to Minnesota before taking on the Twins over the weekend, but the Astros will be in the third game of their series against the Boston Red Sox. It’s entirely possible that once the Rangers land in the Twin Cities, there could be a tie at the top of the American League West.
Do you think the Rangers will be able to solve their co-closer issues? Share your thoughts with Matt on Twitter @FisherWritesMLB.