3 key observations from the Rangers' first 16 games of 2025

The Texas Rangers started the season strong but are coming off a disappointing road trip this week, dropping five of their last six games. Losing two of three to the Chicago Cubs and getting swept by division rival Seattle mariners is not how they envisioned.

Here are 3 observations from the Rangers 2025 season thus far.

Josh Jung is the team's catalyst... but he can't do it all by himself

For the past couple of seasons, it's been apparent that Josh Jung is a crucial part of the Rangers' offensive production when healthy. The problem is he hasn't always been healthy.

Jung hit the IL after the second game of the regular season, he recently returned to Texas's lineup on April 8 in Chicago. Since his return, the third baseman has been hitting

The problem is Jung can't be the only form of offensive production if Texas is looking to make a championship run this year. And the rest of the team is hitting horribly, with the team's batting average ranking bottom five in the league.

Joc Pederson and Jake Burger's early season performance isn't going to cut it

Heading into the regular season we expected the addition of Joc Pederson and Jake Burger to transform this lineup back to the 2023 championship season form. That just hasn't played out the way Texas has hoped so far.

Both are batting a combined 11-for-96 (.115) in the Rangers' first 16 games with Pederson hitting at a dreadful .070 in 43 at-bats and looks completely lost at the plate.

This is far beyond the performance we saw during spring training. Pederson in particular was Texas's hottest hitter in the spring and ever since games actually started to count, all of a sudden he can't hit the ball to save his life.

With Wyatt Langford out and the rest of the team struggling as well, Pederson and Burger not producing is just another bad sign for any positive progress to start the year.

Rangers desperately need to figure out the backend of their starting rotation

The first three arms in the rotation have been great: Nathan Eovaldi, Tyler Mahle and Jack Leiter have been the bright spots and have kept Texas in countless games. They've provided what they needed to in order for the offense to step up and score just enough for the win.

However, the backend of Patrick Corbin and rookie Kumar Rocker are making Texas fans a bit uneasy. Corbin looked strong enough in his first outing of the season, only surrendering three runs but his track record over the last five seasons leaves a lot to stress out about. Then two of three starts from Rocker have been really poor and he has a 7.94 ERA after giving up three earned to Seattle in just 3 1/3 innings.

Hopefully, this solution will be solved when Leiter returns from the IL. It's unclear what the corresponding move will be, but Rocker will likely be the odd one out to get sent to Triple-A and work out his struggles.

It still doesn't make me feel comfortable to see Corbin take the mound every fifth game but what are the other options?

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