Grading Skip Schumaker's first 2 weeks as Rangers' manager

We are 15 games into the 2026 regular season and that means we are 15 games deep into the Skip Schumaker Era as the go-to man for the Texas Rangers.

Signing a five-year deal this offseason to replace future Hall of Famer Bruce Bochy, Schumaker is off to an 8-7 start but it doesn't seem like much of the weakness that have plagued the Rangers the past two seasons has disappeared yet.

What is Schumaker doing right early on the job?

For starters, Schumaker has been good at getting the energy level to a maximum starting from spring training and it carried over successfully into the first six games on the road to start the season. Players were having fun, the lasso celebration made an appearance and most importantly they were winning games.

After a 4-2 start to the year, Texas was among the top five offenses in MLB, having scored 32 runs on on eight home runs, 56 hits, eight doubles and 31 RBIs in Philadelphia and Baltimore. That led to a promising start for the skipper as the team won the first two series on the road for just the second time in franchise history.

He's also pushing the right buttons on the starting pitching rotation. Yes, there's not much to do with reliable arms like Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi but he's navigating the others just as well. MacKenzie Gore has been everything they hoped for while, Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter started off well but hit a bit of a snafu this weekend in L.A. He's even gotten the right stuff out of Jacob Latz despite the one mistake he made to Max Muncy on Friday.

Lastly, minus a few misses, he's managed a great lineup. Brandon Nimmo is a bonafide leadoff man, Jake Burger in the cleanup spot has paid dividends and with Corey Seager in front of him it's really worked.

What has gone wrong for Schumaker?

Where he's struggled are the two obvious errors anyone in his position could make: the handling of the bullpen and what to do with struggling hitters.

All he truly has to work with right now in the pen is Chris Martin and Robert Garcia so why not go to them? Unfortunately, they have delivered him more pain than success. Martin and Garcia have shown time and time again that they are not much for pivotal moments.

There's really only been one game Schumaker has mismanaged and that was Friday's series opener against the Dodgers. Quite frankly, he left Rocker in too long, which ballooned on him in the worst way possible. He then made the same mistake one inning later with Garcia.

While the Rocker one was a bit understandable, saying afterward that he couldn't afford to stretch the bullpen super thin on day one of a 10-game road trip that has no off days. Garcia's move though is a bit questionable because the lefty hasn't had control all season.

The next big challenge will be what he does with the remaining struggling bats. The Josh's (Smith and Jung) could be better. While Jung had a solid series in L.A., Smith is still only hitting .174 with a pretty horrendous .255 on-base percentage.

Overall grade for Schumaker's first 15 games: C+

It hasn't been overwhelmingly good or bad. It's been enough to shift the culture toward what he wants the team to be but there's plenty of glaring holes. Good news is that they sit on top of the division, regardless if it's one of the more underperforming divisions in MLB to start the the year.