Texas Rangers Drop Series In Chicago: 3 Takeaways

The Texas Rangers dropped another series Sunday when they lost the final game of a four game series against the White Sox.

The Rangers lost three of four against the Chicago White Sox and fell to 18-30 on the season. Texas has now only won three games total in their past three series. As a team that struggled early in the season, the trend downward only seems to be more pronounced. Here are our three takeaways from the road series.

The Matt Moore Experiment Seems To Be Ending

The Rangers sent Matt Moore to the mound in game two of the series against the White Sox. Despite winning the game 12-5, Moore struggled on the mound surrendering all 5 runs the Sox scored in just 3.2 innings. Shortly after the game, Moore was moved to the disabled list with right knee soreness. Ariel Jurado was called up in his place. It doesn’t take a large leap to get to the conclusion that this is possibly more than just knee soreness. Moore has been pretty abysmal posting a 1-5 record with a 7.99 ERA through 9 starts. We mentioned earlier here at Nolan Writin’ that the leash for Moore was likely short and deservedly so. It seems that this might have finally been the breaking point. If it is truly just soreness, hopefully this will allow him the opportunity to hit the reset button and bounce back as the team moves forward.

Ariel Jurado’s Start Was Quality Even Though It Was Short

Ariel Jurado as we mentioned earlier was called up in place of Matt Moore and made his major league debut Saturday. Jurado, who entered the game as the 19th ranked prospect in the Rangers system. The 22-year old righty started the game for Texas and despite only going 4.2 innings, he had a quality start. This was purely a matter of his in game performance not fully matching his stats. In fact, had it not been for the 4th inning when the White Sox scored 4 runs, Jurado’s start would’ve been considered top tier. When you compare Jurado’s start to what should be expected of him long term, Jurado proved that he can be a mid-late rotation starter later in his career.

Rougned Odor May Be Losing His Spot

Rougned Odor has continued to raise questions with his performance at the plate this season. Odor went 1 for 15 in the series with 5 strikeouts which just made the calls for his replacement that much louder. Odor is now hitting .169 on the season and looks more and more replaceable with each game. We’ve already seen him taken out of the lineup when a lefty starts on the mound but with other players like Isiah Kiner-Falefa looking strong it may be a matter of time before Odor finds himself on the bench.

The Texas Rangers dropped another series Sunday when they lost the final game of a four game series against the White Sox.

The Matt Moore Experiment Seems To Be Ending

Ariel Jurado’s Start Was Quality Even Though It Was Short

Rougned Odor May Be Losing His Spot

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