CHICAGO — The Rangers officially welcomed Bruce Bochy to his mission Saturday. For the six months since they started recruiting him to turn the franchise around, they’ve focused on everything that could go right.
On a crisp afternoon at Wrigley Field, they unintentionally revealed most of the franchise’s history. Namely: How everything can go wrong.
In a 10-3 loss to the Chicago Cubs, the Rangers made five errors. They could have been charged with at least six. They committed a balk. They allowed two stolen bases. In total, they approached 10 free bases allowed. Put it another way: In 13 years of managing the San Francisco Giants on the way to three World Series wins, Bochy’s teams had exactly one nine-inning, five-error game. In eight games with the Rangers, he’s equaled that.
“We’ve been playing so well,” Bochy said. “I’d hate to think we’d have a game like this when we’ve been playing so well. But it got a little sloppy. We’ve got to wash it off and show we can be resilient.”
The five-error game for the Rangers, though, has recently become an annual affair. Though they’ve had only 14 such games in their 52 years, they’ve had one in each of the last three as they’ve carved themselves a reputation as a fundamentally unsound team.
On Saturday, shenanigans began early. Corey Seager was charged with the first of his two throwing errors on the second batter of the first inning. He charged Dansby Swanson’s ball and threw on the run to first, a bit wide of the bag. Nathaniel Lowe could not scoop it. Martín Pérez then balked Swanson to third; he’s balked in both of his starts under the pitch clock, charged with not coming to a complete stop. Swanson ended up scoring.
In the second, Marcus Semien bobbled a ball and Jonah Heim threw high on a stolen base attempt. In the sixth, Seager threw wide of second on a force play attempt. And in the eighth, after the game was out of hand, a throw back to second from Adolis García got away, allowing the final run of the day to score. The day was appropriately bookended by errors contributing to Cubs’ runs.
“I don’t think we helped ourselves out,” Seager said. “We really didn’t play great defense. It was unfortunate. Errors are going to happen. You just hope it doesn’t happen five times. It makes a game hard to win.”
But wait, there’s more, as Dan Akroyd used to say in his best attempted Chicago-ese. The Rangers outfield has been something of a patchwork over the first eight games with center fielder Leody Taveras on the IL and neophyte platoon utility men Josh Smith and Ezequiel Duran only capable of playing left at this point. Taveras was to play his third rehab game with Double-A Frisco on Saturday evening.
It’s meant moving Robbie Grossman to right, where he has clearly struggled. He lost two balls in the sun at Globe Life Field on opening day. On Saturday, he bobbled a pair of balls after they’d hit the ground. One, ruled as a double by Nick Madrigal, probably should have gone as a single and an error. Also, the Cubs ran freely on him, taking extra bases on more than one opportunity.
The Rangers’ alignment has been designed to give them the best offensive lineup to start the game. With a lead, though, they can move Travis Jankowski or Bubba Thompson into center and García back to right. The last two days in windy Wrigley, García has also struggled. He had a run-scoring double glance off his glove on Friday, then was short on a dive Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Rangers have held Thompson back as a potential late-game runner. Opportunities for his speed to change a game have not materialized. It’s led to him going without an at-bat for a week. Bochy acknowledged he needed to find a way to get Thompson into the game. He also said he might find a day off for a player Sunday.
That could be Grossman. Wrigley is a tough place to play for an outfielder with winds and odd angles, particularly in right. When Grossman was hot with the bat, as he was all spring training, the early-inning defensive tradeoff was worth the offense. But he’s cooled off significantly. After going hitless in four at-bats Sunday, he’s in a 1-for-18 skid.
“He’s played right. He’s fine at both corners,” Bochy said. “Really across the board, we had a few guys who had rough days out there. You know it’s going to happen, but you hate to see it.”
Welcome to your mission, Bruce. Nobody said it was going to be easy.
