ARLINGTON, Texas — The Silver Boot was up for grabs in this final season series between the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros, but the implications of winning the season series goes beyond an otherwise meaningless trophy.
With the Astros now holding the tiebreaker, they have an advantage over the Rangers if the two teams end up with the same records. However, with the series loss, just to equal Houston becomes more daunting for a Texas team that is now 8-11 since the All-Star break with four of those wins being spotted by the historically terrible Chicago White Sox.
Game 113: Houston 3, Texas 4 (W: Yates, 4-1, L: Ferguson, 1-4)
Game 114: Houston 4, Texas 2 (W: Valdez, 11-5, L: Mahle, 0-1, Sv: Hader, 22)
Game 115: Houston 6, Texas 4 (W: Kikuchi, 5-9, L: Urena, 3-7, Sv: Hader, 23)
A first-time walk-off winner
For the first half of the season, Josh Smith was, arguably, the team’s MVP. In the second half, the third baseman cooled off considerably, as Smith has slashed only .206/.261/.318 since the All-Star break.
However, with his first half, he earned a turn at the leadoff spot, a way to get him to see more at-bats. Indeed, on Monday night, as the Rangers opened up the series against the Astros, Smith was the only Ranger to see five trips to the plate. Until the bottom of the ninth, Smith was 0 for 4, but the potential existed for some of the first half heroics to strike again and strike they did.
Smith walloped a 3-1 pitch over the fence for a two-out, two-run home run with Texas trailing 3-2 in the 10th inning, sending everyone home happy. It was his only hit of the night, but it was the first walk-off home run of his life at any level of baseball.
Seager avoids no-hit humiliation
Just one evening after what appeared to be a season-lifting walk-off from Smith, the Rangers’ buzz was immediately killed by Framber Valdez. The Astros’ ace no-hit Texas through 8.2 innings to once again show that momentum does not seem to adhere to these Rangers.
Valdez, who had tossed a no-hitter just over a year ago last August, was in control the whole night, completely keeping the Rangers off-balance. The Astros’ defense played solidly behind Valdez, enabling him to almost become the first Astro to ever throw multiple no-hitters.
A hard-earned Smith walk with two outs in the ninth brought up the hottest Texas hitter and Corey Seager broke up history with a two-out bomb. With the shutout over, Valdez was lifted with a 4-2 lead and after a Robbie Grossman walk by new pitcher Josh Hader, Josh Jung nearly tied the game with a shot that died at the base of the wall.
An anticipated debut
A year and three months after Tommy John surgery, Tyler Mahle took the hill again with his new club. The 29-year old debuted in a Rangers uniform on Tuesday night. Having to duel Valdez with no-hit stuff, Mahle outperformed expectations in his first game back from a lengthy rehab, going five innings and surrendering just one run in his outing.
He was able to complete the five frames in 75 pitches as he works his way back to a full starter’s load. For a team that just shipped out Michael Lorenzen before the trade deadline, the debut for Mahle was a hopeful moment that the rotation could be stabilizing.
Depth lacking
Given a change in roles over the last few years, Jose Urena might be hitting his limit. In 2018, as a starter for the Marlins, Urena threw a career-high 174 innings. But over the last two years, Urena has been exclusively in the bullpen. This season, he’s been shuttled up and down from the rotation to the bullpen and now is at 84 ⅓ innings, his most since tossing 89 ⅓ frames in 2022.
So it’s no real surprise that the last two times that Urena’s been called on to start, after two months of coming out of the bullpen, the outings have been less than stellar despite being a positive member of the staff for the bulk of the season.
Without Lorenzen, and with Max Scherzer and Jon Gray on the shelf, the Rangers are short three of their full-time starters from just a couple of weeks ago. Mahle’s return helped, and Jacob deGrom will be throwing to hitters for the first time since his own Tommy John rehab began, but Texas has been having to make do with a patchworked rotation during some of their most pivotal games.
In the finale against Houston, with the season series on the line, Urena gave up two runs in four innings, but they were a stressful four innings and with the bullpen exhausted of middle relief to make up for the lack of starters, Houston added to their lead to make it 5-0 in a game that they would go on to win 6-4. At a time when run prevention is paramount with the offense not producing, a lack of depth in the rotation is really hurting the Rangers.
Too little, too late
One positive is Texas didn’t give up in the finale; nowadays, four runs is a solid output from the Rangers. But they had to fight from behind again. The offense not producing regularly puts a lot of pressure on the pitching to be perfect; a lot of times, that pressure results in messy outings.
The pitcher not being perfect puts a lot of pressure on the offense to try and produce, and that pressure results in a lot of unfulfilled opportunities.
Urena and Jose Leclerc had the Rangers in a 5-0 hole by the middle innings, and while Texas was able to chip away, it was just too little, too late.
Too little, too late might be the motif of the second half of the season. Having now lost even more ground on the now-first-place Astros, Texas no longer has games remaining against Houston to make up ground directly, nor do they hold the tiebreaker against their in-state rivals.
At this point the Rangers could turn things around against the Yankees this weekend to begin to rise in the West and it might not matter because they’ve put themselves in a situation where they are relying on both Houston and Seattle to fall apart. September is a different brand of baseball, but the Rangers’ outlook on games beyond that looks bleak.
Do you think 2025 will be the year that the Rangers bring the Silver Boot back to Arlington? Share your thoughts with Matt on Twitter @FisherWritesMLB.
