BOSTON — Is it better to have a hot stretch out of the gate and fizzle toward the break, or better to start out slow and ramp up at the break?
The Rangers are about to find out, as they finished up the first leg of their final road trip of the metaphorical first half and entered the final stretch of 17 games in a row without a day off with their recent issues on full display at Fenway.
The fizzle is in full effect as Texas dropped two of three in Boston during their first look at the Red Sox in 2023. The Rangers are now 2-4 in July and 4-6 in their last 10 games as they limp toward the All-Star break.
- Game 86: Texas 6, Boston 2 (W: Dunning, 8-1, L: Ort, 1-2, Sv: Smith, 15)
- Game 87: Texas 2, Boston 4 (W: Bello, 6-5, L: Gray, 6-5, Sv: Jansen, 18)
- Game 88: Texas 6, Boston 10 (W: Winckowski, 3-1, L: Sborz, 4-4)
The perilous view from the top
A lot of attention has been paid to the Rangers’ recent slumps in hitting with runners in scoring position, which has now dipped to below .300 on the year. But on the surface, Texas is still leading baseball in average and slugging with runners in scoring position for the year.
That doesn’t tell the full story.
Where the Rangers are leading the American League, however, is in runners left on base. Only the Reds and Giants in the National League are ahead of them in all of baseball.
Obviously, when you lead the majors in runs scored and runs batted in, you have to have a decent amount of traffic on the bases. But a lot of runners on base also presents a lot of opportunities to drive runners in, and while Texas certainly took advantage of those opportunities earlier in the year, they’ve sputtered in the last month.
In this series in Boston, the Rangers left 23 on base and went 8-for-30 with runners in scoring position. For the year, Texas has failed to score 3.77 runners in scoring position per game and left 5.46 runners in general on base.
Offensive threat Mitch Garver
It's been a challenge for backup catcher and designated hitter Garver to get going. Between Jonah Heim having a great season as the Rangers’ starting catcher, Ezequiel Duran having success as a part-time DH, and with Garver missing part of the season with injury, the 2019 Silver Slugger has registered only 97 plate appearances. The rest of the Rangers’ regular starters have put up nearly 400. Some of the talk that the Rangers needed to find another bat at DH has been in part because of the lack of consistent production from Garver.
In Boston, however, Garver showed that he can still get things done when given a chance. In the opener of the series, behind a dominant and fast-moving Dane Dunning on the mound, Garver provided most of the offensive output. He went 2-for-2 in the game with two walks and a big three-run homer that turned the game around after Dunning allowed a first inning run. Overall, Garver drove in four, and in the series, went 3-for-6.
If the Rangers’ defensive alignment sees an outfield of Duran, Leody Taveras and Adolis Garcia, then Garver can be considered the primary DH with Jonah Heim as the regular backstop. Garver, though, has a much better slash line when he’s behind the plate than when he’s just swinging at the plate, although in small sample sizes.
In 10 games as the catcher, Garver is slashing .387/.472/.871. In 15 games as the designated hitter, he’s hit just .185/.267/.222. That kind of production won’t do, but if Texas decides to pursue more pitching instead of more hitting, Garver will have to learn how to stay engaged at the plate when he’s the DH.
No lead safe for Rangers bullpen
The Rangers clawed and scratched for five runs in the series finale against Boston, with some breakthroughs with runners in scoring position. After trailing 3-1 early, Josh Jung and Jonah Heim both doubled to give Texas, at the time, a 5-3 advantage through five innings. With starter Nathan Eovaldi struggling through the humid Boston night, the Rangers’ bullpen, which had not been nearly as bad as of late, took over with a run in and two outs in the 6th.
Josh Sborz got Texas out of danger but the bats failed to bring in insurance in the top of the 7th despite a two on, no out situation. That proved quite costly as the fateful bottom half of the inning took 37 minutes for Texas to wade through. In it, manager Bruce Bochy used four pitchers – Sborz, Grant Anderson, John King, and Jose Leclerc.
Perhaps most troubling is the fact that Sborz, who had an 0.55 ERA in his last ten games and had held opponents to under .100 batting against him, gave up three runs while just recording two outs. This came after an outing ago against Houston in which he also gave up three runs. Sborz had been the Rangers’ second-most reliable reliever, next to Will Smith, with wear and tear perhaps catching up to him in July.
Anderson, whose highly impressive big league debut may have created a false sense of security, came on to relieve Sborz and allowed all three inherited runners to score before giving up two runs of his own, at which point King came on and allowed one inherited runner to score and gave up two more runs.
All in all, Boston scored six runs before Jose Leclerc, who just recently returned from injury, came in and put out the fire and retired the side in the 8th, but the damage was far, far past done.
It was a poor showing in Boston for a Rangers team clinging to their division lead. While the offense had a brief spark of life in the finale, on the whole, the struggles are visible and apparent. The starting pitching hasn’t been going as deep in the games, and while part of that is innings management for an injury-prone rotation, part of it can be chalked up to exhaustion during a brutal stretch of scheduling.
Perhaps most alarming is the bullpen is falling back on hard times, and while it’s good to see Leclerc have a solid outing upon his return, he can’t pitch every night, nor can recently acquired Aroldis Chapman nor closer Smith.
The truth is, the All-Star break can’t get here soon enough for the Texas Rangers.
Do you think manager Bruce Bochy is making the right moves with the bullpen? Share your thoughts with Matt on Twitter @FisherWritesMLB.
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