Rangers Notes: Evolving Offensive Problem Holding Texas Bats Back

Monday wasn’t a good example. But the Texas Rangers do have a runners-in-scoring-position problem that is getting more glaring.

The Rangers lost to the New York Yankees, 4-2, on Monday. With Yankees left-hander Max Fried on the mound, runs were going to be hard to come by. But Texas went 1-for-5 with runners in scoring position.  

Entering the series the Rangers were a middling team in that regard. Texas was 17th in the Majors in batting average with runners in scoring position with a slash of .248/.333/.410. What’s interesting is that the Rangers are No. 24 in RBI with 77. They’re also fifth in strikeouts in that situation with 69.

The strikeouts are a clear issue and it’s dragging down the offensive progress the Rangers have made the first month this season.

Take Sunday’s game with the Athletics, a 2-1 loss. The Rangers were 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position. Texas went 5-for-8 with a walk in the game, so it had plenty of changes to score. But, after that, the Rangers went 1-for-20 with three walks and eight strikeouts. See, there are those strikeouts again.

Texas had at least one baserunner in eight of the nine innings, the first time the Rangers did that in a game in which they scored one or fewer runs in nearly three years. At least that loss, to Atlanta on May 15, 2023, was a 12-0 loss. The Rangers didn’t have much of a chance.

But that dropped the Rangers to 4-5 in one-run games. In addition, Texas is 0-3 in two-run games. Last year, Texas was 21-28 in one-run games and 13-15 in two-run games. The Rangers were 81-81.

Rangers manager Skip Schumaker addressed it on Sunday. He’s keeping the faith. But he also doesn’t have many answers.

“I wish I could tell you why,” Schumaker said to reporters, including MLB.com. “I don't really have that answer. We’ve had different guys up. It's not just the same guy up. But it's gonna happen at some point. We're too good of an offense, there's too many good players in our lineup for it not to come through. It's not like they haven't done it before. We've had a lot of traffic. I don't really have an answer for the reason why we haven't gotten that big hit.”

The Rangers need to find the answer. The sooner the better.

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