The Rangers Trail Oakland By Four Games

2nd place feels pretty weird, doesn’t it?

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The Rangers fell behind the Indians 7-1 on Friday, eventually fighting back to even the game at 8 before losing 11-8 in 11 innings. Texas (56-47) has now lost 6 of 8 coming out of the All Star Break, and 10 out of 13 if we count the skid before the intermission.

Despite the confirmation bias, nights like last night are why I wrote that the Rangers don’t need any more offense, and this clearly isn’t a matter of motivation, because, as was evident, they scored 7 runs after being on the brink of embarrassment.

This is not a want issue. If this team didn’t want it they wouldn’t be anywhere close to 56 wins right now.

The variance has seemed to go against the Rangers’ favor for quite awhile now, such that even 8 runs on 14 hits wasn’t enough to secure a victory. The rotation is formidable 4 days of the week … Perez is the only potential weak link. The offense doesn’t need to be 8-runs-per-night good for the Rangers to win; the Rangers are good enough to win 60% of their games with half that offensive production.

I’m still a believer in this team making it to October, but something is going to have to give over the next week, because the Rangers really can’t afford to fall any further back in the West than they already are.