Good, Bad, and Ugly: How to Examine the Texas Rangers’ 1-4 Start in 2022

The Texas Rangers have played five games in the 2022 MLB regular season. They’ve lost four of them, which is bad, but they’ve had some fun moments, which is good, but they could’ve (and maybe should’ve) won all five of those games, and that’s pretty ugly.

So let’s talk about it!

Let’s take a look at what’s worked and what needs fixing after five games – a very rational amount of time to judge a baseball team into a season, he said, sarcastically. Why ISN’T the bullpen able to keep us in games? Why and how specifically is Marcus Semien struggling? I want to take a look at these questions and see what we can find out about the team early on.

I’m going to do my best to try and do one of these G/B/U posts once every five games or so, or maybe once every two series or something. Something to just keep fans up to date with the team who may not be able to watch every game like myself.

Texas Rangers: The Good – Plate Discipline

I could literally talk about this for hours, so I’m going to try to keep it as short and sweet as I possibly can. The Rangers’ plate discipline so far this year has been elite. Not just good, not just great. Elite.

Let’s do some comparisons with MLB rankings. In 2021, the Texas Rangers drew only 433 walks (29th). They currently sit at 8th (3rd in AL) with 18. In 2021, the Texas Rangers finished dead last in baseball with a .294 on-base percentage. They currently sit at 8th (3rd in AL) at .340. There is tangible improvement in patience in the batters box, and that is something the Rangers desperately need if they want to win ballgames in 2022.

Mitch Garver has spearheaded this offensive turnaround, as he sits at third in the A.L. with 5.10 pitches seen per at bat. Players like Adolis Garcia, who have a tendency to strike out a lot, are matching – and even surpassing – their walk to strikeout ratios. The Rangers are striking out significantly less than most teams in the league, at least early on. The problem isn’t that they’re getting on base, it’s that they’re doing it, and then not doing much with the baserunners, and we’ll get to that in the next slide.

Moral Victories!

The Rangers have been competitive in all five of their games so far. They’ll get blown out at some point, and they might even return the favor on a club at some point. But for 37 innings, the Rangers have had a chance to stay in the ballgame in every single one of them. Did they blow a 7-0 lead on Opening Day? Did they trail 6-1 in game 3? Of course they did, but that didn’t stop those games from being entertaining.

This year is going to be full of frustrating losses. I hate to say it, but there’s more on the way. There will be a handful of games this year that the Rangers lose in mind-numbingly infuriating fashion. The roster isn’t perfect, the prospects are still grinding, and there’s plenty of work to be done ahead to get this team back to championship contention, but this team will not lose 102 games, and they certainly won’t do it without a fight.

Texas Rangers: The Bad – The Bullpen

Wait, it’s not as bad as you might think! I’m here to serve as resident Bullpen Optimist. I could’ve swapped them into the Ugly category, but I didn’t. Here’s why.

Yes, the Rangers need a better batch of relief pitchers. What currently presides is a flurry of young guys who haven’t established any sort of command in the league, veterans far past their heyday, and a myriad of messy mechanics in between. But, would it surprise you to learn that the Rangers have the fourth highest strikeout rate of any bullpen in the American League? What if I told you that they have the second lowest bullpen WHIP in the AL West? Would that give you some hope?

I jest. Those things are true, and they are bright spots, but the pen needs work. Texas’s pitching as a whole currently ranks 28th in the majors with an OBA of .298. Only Kansas City has a worse staff in the American League, as the Rangers have surrendered 8.4 hits per game, 9 total home runs (all but one at the hands of the best lineup in baseball, but I digress), and hold a 5.91 team ERA.

I think there’s two sides to this coin. On the one hand, like I mentioned, Texas has faced two really solid lineups to start the year. Toronto is quite possibly the deepest team in baseball, and their whole brand is that they crush baseballs and they do not care who they have to hurt on the mound to do so. Colorado isn’t a slouch of an offense either. On the other hand, Texas is relying on a lot of guys with serious command issues. Kolby Allard had a great inning of work last night against Colorado, but he almost beaned two batters. Spencer Howard had absolutely no control over his pitches in the first few innings in the Toronto series finale. Taylor Hearn, for as exciting as his strikeouts and jam-escapes were, gifted Colorado a lot of hits.

The Rangers do not have a shutdown pitcher. Not one. There are many teams in the American League, let alone the division, with multiple just in their rotation or bullpen alone. If you want my optimist take, the starting pitching has been able to really limit damage. Excluding Spencer Howard’s start, Texas starters have yet to allow more than 3 earned runs in a start, which should be good enough to keep teams in games, and it has been.

We will have to see if that can sustain and who can emerge from an extremely thin bullpen, if anyone. Guys like Barlow, Santana, and others have specialties that make them better suited for late game management than others, and Jonathan Hernandez and Jose Leclerc’s returns could provide a shot in the arm that is so dearly needed, but only time will tell. We’ll know a lot more about the long-term stability of everyone in the pen come summer time.

Run Production

How can an offense that has scored 30 runs in five games have issues, you might ask? Let’s dissect.

As of the morning of April 13, Texas is tied for seventh in the league with 37 hits through five games. At just over an average of seven a game, that’s not terrible, but it’s not enough when you’re not extending them into extra base hits and home runs. The Rangers have only hit four home runs in their four games since opening day, and none have come from Seager or Semien (the latter of whom we’ll talk about in the next slide. Texas has more home runs than any team in the National League through April 12. They currently rank in the top six in the majors in home runs, runs batted in and scored, and fewest strikeouts. However, the team has had 72 at-bats in five games in which runners have been left stranded as a result of said at-bat.

The root cause for this is that five of the six team leaders in hits (Seager, Garver, Lowe, Garcia, Miller) are top-two-thirds of the lineup guys. Calhouns Willie and Kole are a combined 2-24 with one RBI off a solo shot from the former in the home opener. The Rangers rank 22nd in the league in doubles (5), and 28 of the last 38 innings have been scoreless ones – five of those ten came in Sunday’s comeback win over Toronto. Texas needs fluidity and consistency from the bottom third of their lineup if they’re going to stay productive on offense. For a few games, homers were a dime a dozen. For another few, it’s been a drought.