ARLINGTON, Texas — The Texas Rangers welcomed the final home series of the year against the rival Seattle Mariners, who entered the three-game set in a tie with the Rangers with both teams behind the Houston Astros in the American League West.
The Rangers exited the series holding a 2.5 game lead in the division after sweeping Seattle in three thrilling contests.
Texas needed to win at least two of the three games to hold the tiebreaker over Seattle – which they accomplished by Saturday evening – while the 102-loss Kansas City Royals provided a late-season gift in their series in Houston.
Everything turned up in the Rangers’ favor, as the Royals miraculously swept Houston, leaving Texas with a magic number of 5 before they head to the West Coast for the season’s final week.
- Game 153: Seattle 5, Texas 8 (W: Dunning 11-6, L: Miller 8-6)
- Game 154: Seattle 0, Texas 2 (W: Montgomery 10-11, L: Gilbert, 13-7, Sv: Chapman, 6)
- Game 155: Seattle 8, Texas 9 (W: Eovaldi, 12-4, L: Woo 4-5, Sv: Leclerc, 4)
Three Up
Masterful Montgomery – Jordan Montgomery summed up his start on Saturday, and the previous two where he completed seven innings each, as just relying on All-Star catcher Jonah Heim. The former St. Louis Cardinal provided exactly what the Rangers needed on a night where their offense was held mostly in check by throwing seven innings of no-run baseball, allowing five hits and two walks.
With Seattle’s reputation for hitting the fastball, Heim and Montgomery’s game plan was to throw the four-seamer less often than some of his off-speed pitches. It worked well and Seattle couldn’t muster much of anything against the standout trade deadline acquisition. Only three Mariners reached scoring position over the whole game as Montgomery secured the series for Texas.
Heaney the Hero – Andrew Heaney has had just one clunker of an outing since moving to the bullpen and it was during the three-game sweep in Cleveland earlier this month where almost nothing went right for Texas.
This time around, with Dane Dunning suddenly losing the strike zone in the opener with the Rangers seeing an 8-0 lead turn into a tighter 8-4 advantage, and with reliever Chris Stratton proving to not be the answer, Heaney was called upon and came away with one of his best outings from the bullpen.
All in all, Heaney went 2 ⅓ innings on Friday night and allowed no base runners while throwing 20 strikes in 34 pitches. Having both Heaney and Martin Perez as valuable long relievers, especially with the starting and high-leverage bullpen pitching as fragile as it can be, has provided a bit of a safe zone for manager Bruce Bochy when he knows multiple innings are needed to put out a fire.
Leclerc slams the door – On a day where the bullpen again looked to be on track to overshadow an all-time stadium best six-home run performance from the Rangers, the mercurial Jose Leclerc, pitching on back-to-back days, came in to preserve a tenuous one-run lead that handed Texas the sweep against the Mariners.
Coming into this game, when tasked with pitching on back-to-back days, Leclerc had given up four runs in 2 ⅓ innings on the second of consecutive days. In Sunday’s finale, however, when the Rangers needed someone to lock things down after seeing leads of 7-2 and 9-5 nearly vanish, Leclerc came up large.
After two quick strikeouts to begin the 9th, Leclerc allowed the tying run to get to scoring position via a Eugenio Suarez double that just scraped the chalk down the left field line. But with everyone anticipating the worst from a bullpen that has constantly let the team down, Leclerc induced a ground ball that first baseman Nathaniel Lowe made a nifty diving play on to preserve the sweep and the save for Texas’ longest tenured player.
Three Down
Stratton struggles – Coming into the first game of the Seattle series on Friday, Chris Stratton had only allowed 5 of 19 inherited runners to score after coming along with Montgomery in the trade with St. Louis at the deadline. Three of those runs came via a grand slam in Minnesota back in August. Overall, Stratton had been one of the most reliable options for Bochy.
On Friday, however, Stratton came in with just one runner on but with the Mariners having built momentum off Texas starter Dunning. Dunning’s 6th inning began with a single, a hit batter, and then a three-run homer, before recording one out and allowing another single. Stratton came in, with the intention to get a ground ball double play to get out of the inning, but instead walked the first batter he faced. After a strikeout, he allowed another single to load the bases before walking in the Mariners’ 4th run of the inning. Stratton threw 15 pitches to four batters and retired just one.
One of Bochy’s former relievers from their time together in San Francisco was given a chance at redemption in the finale when called upon after Martin Perez had allowed two consecutive two-out walks in his second inning of work. Stratton, though, could not close out the side, allowing three straight two-strike singles, which allowed three more inherited runners to cross the plate and made what had looked like a potential blowout a much closer affair.
Chapman cuts it close – A win is a win, but Aroldis Chapman has not been as lockdown and stress-free as Texas would probably like. In seven games in September, Chapman has a 5.14 ERA, having allowed five runs in seven innings during the month. More concerning though is the lack of command that Chapman has been exhibiting.
While he’s been slightly better as a member of the Rangers, with a 4.8 BB/9 ratio down from 6.1 as a member of the Royals before the trade to Texas, the Rangers could use the strikeouts without the walks.
On Friday, coming in with Texas winning by four runs, Chapman allowed a run on three hits and a walk and needed a spectacular diving stop from Josh Jung to end Seattle’s threat. On Saturday, when called upon to close out the game with a man on base in a 2-0 game, Chapman didn’t allow a Mariner to cross the plate, but still allowed a walk to the first runner he saw to push a runner into scoring position and bring the winning run to the plate.
With Will Smith continuing to struggle, Texas doesn’t have an “automatic” choice in close games with Chapman looking ever more weary as the season winds down.
Gutting it out – Nathan Eovaldi has a reputation for being a bulldog. Even so, the Rangers bullpen has been in such bad shape all year that, in a pivotal game, even with Texas up by five runs into the middle innings, Eovaldi was gritting it out through what appeared to be either soreness or fatigue.
With his max fastball velocity just barely scraping 96 mph, and his stuff down across the board, Bochy and pitching Mike Maddux brought a trainer out to check on their de facto ace following the first out of the top of the 3rd. Eovaldi would shrug them off and stay in the game, but the downtick in velocity was apparent.
Eovaldi ultimately managed to grit it out until he loaded the bases in the 6th and the bullpen was called into action. The 2023 All-Star starter is slated to pitch again against the Mariners in the final series of the season. After missing nearly two months with a forearm strain before returning earlier this month, there can be no more start skipping from Eovaldi with a playoff spot not yet claimed, but it is clear that the Rangers will be having to make do with a hurler that might be hurting.
With the lineup coming back to life with big performances from star players Corey Seager (two home runs in this series) and Marcus Semien (two home runs on Sunday), along with rookies stepping up in big moments including two home runs from Evan Carter in the series and several game-saving plays at third base by Josh Jung, Texas finished off their regular season at home with everything clicking on all cylinders.
The starting pitching did what it needed to do, the bullpen did what it needed to do and the offense looked like it did four months ago. The sweep was everything Texas needed at exactly the time they needed it, and now the Rangers go into the season’s final week up 2.5 games over Houston for first place in the AL West while having pushed Seattle out of the Wild Card picture for now.
There’s still work to be done, but with their time at home in the regular season now behind them, the Texas Rangers are in first place and headed to California to play a struggling Angels team with their destiny firmly in their hands.
Do you think the Rangers will carry the momentum of this series to a date with October? Share your thoughts with Matt on Twitter @FisherWritesMLB.
