Rangers defense taking nosedive to start season after winning top team honor in 2025

Over the last few seasons, the Texas Rangers have been notorious for having one of the best fielding teams in Major League Baseball and have the team (and individual) hardware to back that up. But very uncharacteristically, the 2026 season has not been one of those seasons.

While the offense is catching quite the flack, rightfully so. Every game we will see a play on the defensive side that will make fans, viewers at home and even some of the dugout roll their eyes.

Usually at the top of the list for fewest errors, last season committed a league lowest 51, also could be found among the top five defensive teams in the 2023 and 2024 seasons as well. This season however, they are outside of the top 10 with 18 errors.

Rangers' uncharactertistic defensive woes have not ended well in 2026

Teams will make errors, there's no way around it. Even for a team that isn't the best fielding team in the league can get away with mistakes if they limit the runs or other unfortunate circumstances attached to them.

Unfortunately, when Texas has made errors this season, they've more often than not have paid the price for them. The latest circumstance occurred in Friday's 7-1 loss to the Chicago Cubs.

During the seventh inning with Texas down 4-1, Corey Seager and Justin Foscue collided converging near second base to field a grounder and allowed Nico Hoerner to reach base. That error started off a chain of events that would lead to a three run inning for Chicago and subsequently took the game out of reach.

On just the latest road trip in Detroit and the Bronx, several defensive miscues cost Texas. While in Detroit, Josh Jung couldn't grab a ground ball by Gleyber Torres, which eventually led to the Tigers scoring three runs in the top of the first and winning the game 5-1. Then in the Bronx, the series finale was all kinds of crazy, beginning with Joc Pederson starting in right field and helping contribute to two first inning triples.

In April, Ezequiel Duran made a couple of errors, losing a pop-up in the sun and the same series Wyatt Langford misplayed a shallow fly ball for the Athletics to score three. While they won that game, it still wasn't pretty.

Now, there's no way to tell without doing a deep dive on the season numbers over the first 39 games how much the fielding mistakes have cost the Rangers. But a team that is usually one of the best in fielding percentage and fewest errors commited, sit in an uncommon spot and need to tighten it up.

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