4 key goals the Rangers must hit in the second half to secure a postseason spot

The Texas Rangers kick off the second-half of the 2025 season Friday evening in Arlington, hosting Major League Baseball's best team in the Detroit Tigers.

For Texas, their 48-49 record currently has them outside of the postseason race, third in the American League West and 3.5 games back of the final AL Wild Card spot. No need to mass panic though with two and half months remaining in the season.

But they need to go on some sort of mad men style run down the stretch, which is whole lot easier said than done when you look at the struggles they've had.

4 second-half factors that will led to a Rangers' postseason berth in 2025

Scoring with RISP

This has been an issue all season for Texas, seeminly forgetting that in order to win ballgames you need to score the runners from second and third base. Which you think they'd be good at given they have been in those situations a lot this year.

As a group they average 3.55 runners left in scoring position per game, which is good for tenth-worst in the league. That is even worse than the 3.22 they averaged last season.

With those numbers it's no surprise that the Rangers have scored the eighth least runs in the league through the first half of the year, 393. That is not going to cut it.

Trading for a bullpen arm

All in all the pitching staff is one of the best in baseball, matter of a fact they are the best when it comes to their 3.28 team ERA. They are also top five in most major pitching categories.

This doesn't mean they can't get better because they most certainly can. Adding a bullpen arm and eliminating the few minor weaknesses they have on the pitching front can help give the offense some leeway when they aren't able to scratch across runs.

MLB's trade market is littered with bullpen arms. Ryan Helsley, Steven Matz, Phil Maton, David Bednar, Emmnauel Clase, Mitch Keller, etc. The list goes on and on. Who's to say Texas can't be in the running to score one of those arms for much-needed support?

Core players having second-half surge

This was touched on earlier, they need the core players to step up to the potential we believe they have.

It starts with Marcus Semien, Corey Seager, Wyatt Langford and Adolis Garcia. From there it branches out to their secondary options. It mostly includes keeping Josh Smith on his rise, as well as adding Evan Carter, Kyle Higashioka and Jonah Heim to the fold. It wouldn't hurt to get a solid set of first baseman either.

The offense with one of the worst offenses in the league in multiple categories would 100% get into the postseason if they were able to find even a fraction of success from their 40-20 start to the season two years ago.

Starting rotation continues to be nails

The rotation just needs to continue to do what it has done best. They are one of the best rotations in MLB with two potential Cy Young candidates in Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi.

It is only expected to get better as well with Tyler Mahle expected back within a few weeks and Jon Gray nearing the end of his rehab starts and is hoping to make his 2025 debut soon. If the starters continue to be of the level they are performing at, it will help relieve some of the pain that the offense is dealing with.