Rangers have no one to blame but themselves vs. terrible AL West teams as playoff push comes up short

The Texas Rangers weren't robbed. They didn't just run into some bad luck at the end of the season. What they did was not perform well enough to win the AL West and advance to the postseason. If the team wants to see why they are headed home, it needs to do little more than look in the mirror and wonder why they couldn't capitalize on what may be the worst single-season division in MLB history.

The Rangers' record against their intra-divisional foes was deplorable. If they had played the Astros, Angels, and Athletics better, they would have run away with the West title. But they played some of their worst baseball against their rivals all season and will be watching the playoffs from home.

The Rangers didn't take advantage of a very weak AL West, and it kept them out of the playoffs

It's pretty lazy and easy to call this year's AL West the "AL Worst". We usually roll our eyes at all the journalists and pundits who throw that label around in a down year for the division. Still, in 2026, it truly was the worst. Not a single team finished above .500, and for the first time in postseason history, a team without a winning record will be representing a division.

There wasn't even a team with a decent run differential. The Astros were the best at -32, but they padded that number at the end of the season against an awful A's team that was just looking to get out of Dodge. The Rangers had a -46 RD, and a lot of that came against the lowly teams within their own division.

Texas was 6-7 against the A's. Let that marinate for a minute. The A's, who are a homeless franchise playing in a minor league park, carrying a 64-98 record and an eye-popping -238 RD, won the season series over the Rangers.

The boys from Arlington were even worse against the 62-100 Angels, going 5-8. They were 11-15 against two of the worst teams in the last decade. When the Rangers headed out to the West Coast this season, they forgot to pack their bats and their competitiveness.

Their 4-9 record against the Astros left them without the most important tiebreaker and made the road to the playoffs even harder.

When it comes down to brass tacks, the 2026 version of the Rangers simply wasn't good enough to capitalize on a weak division. They could take advantage because they weren't very good themselves. Sure, they have big-name, high-priced players like Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi, and Corey Seager, but all three had down years and fizzled at the most high-leverage moments down the stretch.

As a result, this team really has no one to blame but themselves for coming up empty this season. They are who we thought they were all year: a .500 team that was even worse against the cellar-dwelling teams in their division. Why did we ever think there was a 2023-like run in this group?

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