ARLINGTON, Texas — The Texas Rangers really seemed like they could have used a bit of a respite from high-octane matchups this weekend. Unfortunately, the San Diego Padres, despite their record, doubled down on the idea that they could still take a Wild Card spot in the National League and handed Texas a series sweep to go along with a shrinking lead in the AL West that is down to one game over Houston.
While the Rangers were looking elsewhere for help for their pitching staff, San Diego threw their three best starters at Texas and each performed up to the task. The Padres enjoyed the spoils of the top of their rotation as Rangers’ ace Nathan Eovaldi again couldn’t make his start, leaving further questions for Texas as they left California nursing their wounds.
Game 104: Texas 1, San Diego 7 (W: Musgrove, 10-3, L: Dunning, 8-4)
Game 105: Texas 0, San Diego 4 (W: Darvish, 8-7, L: Perez, 8-4)
Game 106: Texas 3, San Diego 5 (W: Snell, 8-8, L: Leclerc, 0-2, Sv: Hader, 25)
Three Up
Here comes the cavalry – Getting swept almost felt like an afterthought this weekend for the Rangers as they struck hard ahead of the trade deadline to signal that they believe in what the team can do in October. Now they just have to get there.
Hurlers Max Scherzer, Jordan Montgomery, and Chris Stratton were acquired by the Rangers while the team was struggling in San Diego. In order to get the reinforcements, general manager Chris Young agreed to send the team’s No. 3 prospect – Luisangel Acuña – to the New York Mets and agreed to pay $22.5 million of what is left on Scherzer’s contract.
Scherzer also elected to exercise his player option for 2024, which secures his services for next season as well. The Rangers also sent reliever John King, minor league starting pitcher prospect Tekoah (TK) Roby, and infield prospect Thomas Seggese to the Cardinals to get Montgomery and Stratton.
Consider it the shot in the arm that the Rangers’ rotation and bullpen needs, as the games against the Padres demonstrated that the starters need someone to break up the routine and breathe some new life into the staff. The question now is how the rotation and bullpen shake out with the arrival of Mad Max, Montgomery, and Stratton and who gets shifted to the bullpen.
The key takeaway from this weekend is that the Rangers have a 3-time Cy Young award winner with an incredible postseason pedigree in their rotation, another starting pitcher with postseason experience, and a fresh reliever who has the potential to help at an area that has felt deficient all season.
Perez and the Wayback Machine – The middle game of this series wasn’t exactly a repeat performance for Martin Perez, but the time machine back to his earlier days with Texas was in full effect on Saturday night again.
Much like his previous start against the Los Angeles Dodgers, and much like several of his starts in his first stint with the Rangers, Perez had one really very bad inning, but buckled down for the rest of his outing to give an otherwise quality start.
After retiring the first three batters he faced in order on ground outs, Perez then saw eight batters in the bottom of the 2nd and surrendered four runs, including walking in a run with the bases loaded. After that, Perez made it all the way into the 6th inning, but couldn’t close out the side. Perez’s night ended at 5 ⅔ innings pitched where he allowed four runs on eight hits, four of which came in that dubious 2nd inning.
The main difference between this performance and the one against the Dodgers, of course, is that Texas was unable to pick Perez up at the plate. It’s hard to call Perez’s performance a positive but there wasn’t much to like from Texas throughout the weekend.
A good return for Grant – With Eovaldi hitting the injured list with arm troubles, the Rangers were able to bring up some bullpen help. That came in the form of righty Grant Anderson.
Anderson had been sent down a week ago during the Dodgers’ series, as Texas had burned through several bullpen arms to keep the staff afloat. The rookie had had a decent month of June, but faltered a bit against the likes of Boston, Tampa Bay, and Los Angeles in July. When he was sent down, Anderson had a 5.20 ERA and 1.301 WHIP with 26 strikeouts in 27.2 innings. However, in Sunday’s finale against the Padres, Anderson provided some needed relief.
In a game where every Rangers pitcher aside from Anderson gave up a run, the righty went 1 ⅓ innings, giving up just one hit, and managing to help Brock Burke get out of a 6th inning jam by inducing a Manny Machado flyout.
Three Down
Eovaldi to the IL – It was announced before the game on Saturday that Texas’ All-Star starting pitcher Eovaldi, who was the likely starter for the finale on Sunday, would be scratched again. Eovaldi had been pushed back from his scheduled start against the Astros after a dip in velocity during his start against Tampa Bay, his only outing since the All-Star break.
This time, the club had their ace get an MRI on his elbow, and while the result was “clean,” there was reported continued soreness in his elbow. The club then announced on Sunday that Eovaldi actually had a right forearm strain and placed him on the 15-day IL.
Since Texas is going to need Eovaldi if they want to continue to play past September, the club made the decision to let him heal up and free up a roster spot for additional relief help. At this point, Eovaldi hasn’t pitched in a game since Tuesday, July 18th.
The addition of Scherzer helps to alleviate the negativity of Eovaldi’s problems, but they are still big problems. A forearm strain was the exact diagnosis that Jacob deGrom had before he was scheduled for Tommy John surgery a month and a half later. The Rangers are trying to avoid a similar fate with their latest ace.
Silenced offense – The additions of Chapman and Scherzer really only mean something if the Rangers’ offense can get back to producing at a level that wins games. Unfortunately, this weekend was one where the bats were quieter than an empty ballpark.
The series in San Diego marked the quietest series for the Rangers all the season, as a trio of Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish, and Blake Snell, and a stout Padres bullpen, held Texas to just four runs total over the three-game set.
Texas registered 18 hits over the weekend, but they were only mostly scattered as the team couldn’t link them together and the power vanished under the California marine layer. The Rangers collected just five extra base hits – all doubles – with none of them driving in a run.
Depth fails test – One of the contingent factors on the Rangers being contenders going into the season was whether their initial 25-man roster would stay healthy. With Corey Seager, Jonah Heim and Eovaldi all on the injured list and others seemingly banged up, that depth was tested over the weekend and earned a failing grade.
Truth be told, the Rangers have been extremely lucky that they didn’t feel the absence of deGrom or Jake Odorizzi earlier in the year – Eovaldi and Dane Dunning have had a large part in that. They are also lucky that Ezequiel Duran was able to fill in at shortstop when Seager missed a month earlier in the year.
Without those performances, the Rangers wouldn’t be where they are right now. As such, the rotation is starting to falter under the rigors of the long summer, Duran is experiencing growing pains, and the duo of Mitch Garver and Sam Huff are nowhere near equal to what Heim has brought to the table on either side of the ball.
The Rangers have made moves to address their pitching issues, and while they still could stand to add another arm, a performer to lengthen the lineup, namely a corner outfielder or catcher if Heim is deemed unlikely to return, should probably be their focus before Tuesday’s trade deadline.
The reinforcements can’t get here soon enough. This series against the Padres showed it. The pitching wasn’t awful, but it was just bad enough that the trio of Scherzer, Montgomery and Stratton are Gandalf riding in from the East at dawn.
But all the pitching in the world isn’t going to mean anything if the offense falls flat like it did this weekend. Now, instead of enhancing a team that has dominated in spurts throughout the season, the Rangers’ new acquisitions are going to have to be team saviors – and that changes the dynamic of their purpose in Arlington.
Do you think the Rangers will bounce back from their lackluster performance on the West Coast? Share your thoughts with Matt on Twitter @FisherWritesMLB.