ARLINGTON, Texas — From one last place team to another, the Texas Rangers travel north of the border to take on the Toronto Blue Jays in the second to last series of July. The Jays are the anchor in the American League East and 9.5 games out of the Wild Card hunt as they sort out how to deal with a disappointing season ahead of next Tuesday’s trade deadline.
It’s looking more and more likely that Toronto will start to retool and rebuild for 2025. They’ve already jettisoned under-performing Cavan Biggio to the Dodgers. Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. and Bo Bichette will be free agents at the end of the 2025 season, which puts the Jays in the odd position of trying to find competitive players that can help as soon as next season without sacrificing too much of what will still be around.
Texas Rangers (51-52, 3rd Place AL West, 2.5 GB) @ Toronto Blue Jays (46-56, 5th Place AL East, 15.0 GB)
Toronto at the break
In the ultra competitive AL East, any sort of slip ups at any point in the season could spell the end of the competitive line. While the Jays haven’t been playing terrible baseball, they haven’t had a winning month all year and that spells disaster out east.
Coming off their worst month at 11-16 in June, the Jays, in a division featuring the top powerhouse offenses in all of baseball, are 10 games below .500 with thoughts of pulling themselves out of the spiral after making the postseason in three of the last four seasons now looking dire.
With a bottom-third offense and a league-worst bullpen, Toronto’s lofty goals for the season almost surely won’t come to fruition, especially in baseball’s toughest division.
Toronto hasn’t been as injury-bitten as other teams, but the injuries that they have suffered have been impactful. Alek Manoah, who was the ace of the staff in 2022, has been lost to UCL surgery. Reliever Jordan Romano has been on the IL since the end of May and has had so many setbacks in recovery that he is considered out for the season.
More recently, infielder and former Ranger Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who had been having a great season for the Jays, has been out the whole month of July with a knee sprain. Star shortstop Bichette, an All-Star in 2023 but having a down year, is out for another few weeks with a calf strain.
The Jays have several assets to trade without sacrificing players like Guerrero, Jr. or Bichette or any of its other core players. Yusei Kikuchi could be a mid-rotation piece for a contender needing to deepen their rotation. Infielders Danny Jansen and Justin Turner could strengthen the offense of a club; Turner, especially, could provide veteran experience to a young contending team.
With the trade deadline now just on the other side of the weekend, some of the players could be on the move over the course of the Rangers’ visit.
The matchups
Game 104, 6:07 PM CT - LHP Andrew Heaney (4-10, 3.60 ERA) vs. LHP Yusei Kikuchi (4-9, 4.54 ERA)
Game 105, 2:07 PM CT - RHP Michael Lorenzen (5-5, 3.53 ERA) vs. RHP Kevin Gausman (8-8, 4.55 ERA)
Game 106, 12:37 PM CT - RHP Jon Gray (5-4, 3.73 ERA) vs. RHP Jose Berrios (8-8, 4.08 ERA)
Despite playing a last place club, the Rangers will not have it easy this weekend, as they are set to face off against a trio of Yusei Kikuchi, Kevin Gausman and Jose Berrios. Kikuchi, as mentioned previously, is potentially auditioning for other clubs and could be making his last start with Toronto in his last start before the deadline.
His last two starts haven’t been great, as he gave up four runs in five innings to Detroit and seven runs in 4 ⅔ innings to Arizona. However, Kikuchi is not that far removed from an incredible 13-strikeout performance against San Francisco.
A Cy Young contender in recent years, Gausman has faced the Rangers 11 times in his career, holding a 5-3 record against Texas with a 3.28 ERA. He gave up four runs in 6⅔ innings against the Giants in his last start, but while he’s provided the Jays with length, Gausman has taken a step back from season’s prior in 2024.
Berrios started the season looking like a Cy Young candidate himself, but after a 3-2 April in which he posted a 1.19 ERA, Berrios has taken a sharp dive downward since. Following a 4⅔ inning outing against Tampa Bay in which he gave up three runs while walking six, Berrios now has a 7.78 ERA in July over four starts, with opponents hitting .282 against him.
On the Texas side of things, the Rangers will send Andrew Heaney, Michael Lorenzen and Jon Gray to the hill in Rogers Centre. Heaney acted as a stopper coming out of the break, helping guide the Rangers to their only win in the series against Baltimore to start off the squad’s current five-game winning streak. Heaney went five innings, but they were five scoreless innings, continuing a string of starts where he is, at the bare minimum, keeping the Rangers in the game.
Lorenzen went five innings against the White Sox in his first outing of the second half, giving up just two runs in a game that the Rangers needed extra innings to win. Lorenzen’s journey over the last month and a half has been up and down, but he’s generally been good for a quality start throughout the season. Jon Gray, meanwhile, also had an exceptionally good outing against the White Sox, going 7⅔ innings and giving up just one run. It was Gray’s best start since mid-May.
The Blue Jays appear poised to sell at the deadline. The Rangers’ status is still up in the air with just days to go before their path is finalized. Sweeping the White Sox was an integral part to the decision-making process, and with the team just 2.5 games out of first place, management could be more inclined to go and get the Rangers some help.
With that in mind, Texas has Josh Jung and Evan Carter set to return soon, along with Tyler Mahle, Cody Bradford and Jacob deGrom rehabbing to enhance the pitching staff. General manager Chris Young could ride it out with what he’s got while seeing the returning players as all the help that they’ll need, or the Rangers could seek more reinforcements.
Texas has a chance to make up even more ground this weekend and really identify areas of need or a path to October otherwise.
Do you think the Rangers will continue their winning ways north of the border? Share your predictions with Matt on Twitter @FisherWritesMLB.
