ARLINGTON, Texas — Scenes from a weekend: Rangers starting pitchers didn’t allow a run in back-to-back games. Aroldis Chapman was acquired, arrived, and blew gas by some Houston hitters. The Rangers packed the All-Star roster like a clown car.
Lovely, all of it. The only thing that threatens to ruin the ol’ holiday barbecue is this: By the time the first firework is launched, the Astros may have left town having trimmed the AL West lead by nearly half.
In a 5-3 win Sunday in front of a third consecutive sellout at Globe Life Field, Houston scored all its runs off relievers in the final four innings. It’s been something of a theme over the first three games of this midseason AL West showdown. The Rangers take an early lead; the Astros answer; the Rangers don’t.
“It’s a tough bullpen,” manager Bruce Bochy said a few minutes before it was announced that Nathan Eovaldi and Adolis García had made the All-Star team as reserves to give the Rangers six All-Stars. “But you’ve got to find a way like we were doing, but they just shut us down. You need a clutch hit, and they got it.”
Maybe it’s still too early to talk about the weaknesses of a team that has controlled the division all season — there are still nearly 80 games to be played — but you could make the case the weekend highlighted issues the Rangers either are addressing or must still address.
The bullpen has been the single-biggest season-long flaw. Hitting with runners in scoring position has emerged as more of an issue in the last month. Put those two together and you have a team that has trouble winning close games late. That certainly seems to describe the Rangers.
The Rangers have allowed Houston two total runs over the first five innings in the first three games of the series and taken a lead early in each. They go into the finale hoping to save a split because they’ve been outscored 10-4 afterward.
The Rangers have scored the fewest runs in the majors in late and close situations, defined as being in the seventh inning or later with the batting team being ahead by a run, tied or with the tying run at least on deck. That stat may be skewed a bit by the fact the Rangers also have the fewest such plate appearances because so many of their early games were effectively blowouts. They are, however, a league-average team in those situations when it comes to OPS. They are 16th at .685.
It also helps explain why they have not exactly been a come-from-behind team in the late innings. They are 4-26 when tied or behind after six. It gets worse with each inning: 2-28 when tied or trailing after seven; 2-33 when tied or trailing after eight.
The Rangers on Sunday got five shutout innings from Andrew Heaney and handed the bullpen a 1-0 lead to protect. Heaney threw 14 pitches to the game’s first batter, Jose Altuve, in an epic battle that eventually led to a strikeout. But Heaney also threw 89 pitches through five innings. He’d allowed seven homers in 66 plate appearances facing batters a third time through the order. Bochy thought it was enough.
Grant Anderson allowed the small lead to slip away with three consecutive one-out hits. Then Chapman, making his Rangers debut, struck out a pair in a scoreless seventh. He struck out Martin Maldonado with a 101.6 mph fastball, the single hardest pitch thrown by a Ranger this year.
“You saw what he is,” Bochy said. “A really big arm. Tough competitor. I thought it went really well.”
That, however, is where “really well,” ended. Josh Sborz, a contender for AL Reliever of the Month in June, walked a pair of batters and then left a first-pitch fastball over the heart of the plate to Chas McCormick, who turned it into a bases-loaded triple. The Rangers drew within a run on a two-run homer by Nathaniel Lowe in the bottom of the inning, but Brock Burke surrendered a leadoff homer to Altuve in the ninth.
The Rangers went 1 for 6 with runners in scoring position. Since their high-water mark of 20 games above .500 on June 6, the Rangers are 15 for 102 (.147) with RISP in their 14 losses. They are 10-14 in that stretch, going 6-10 against teams with winning records.
They are facing good pitching more regularly. And coming up empty more regularly, too.
“Maybe we’re expanding [the strike zone] a little bit more than what we’re used to,” Bochy said. “Sometimes you give the pitcher credit, but I do think that’s happening. It gets streaky, but that’s part of the game. When you’re facing a good team, you’re probably seeing really good pitching. So, it comes down to you do need that clutch hit and we just didn’t get a big one.”
It also comes down to this: If they can’t get the big hit on Monday in the series finale, an otherwise lovely weekend instead turns into an incredible shrinking lead.
