Rangers insider's eviscerating take reveals painful trend exposed in Twins' loss

When you sit down to watch a Rangers game, do you feel like if they get down by multiple runs early that you might be wasting your time waiting and rooting for a comeback? Well, according to one Texas Rangers' insider, the stats would prove that your gut is not deceiving you.

Evan Grant, beat writer and inside guy with the Dallas Morning News, dropped an alarming stat that most people kind of suspected, but didn't know for sure. Now we know that the Rangers aren't likely to come roaring back once they find themselves down by more than one run.

Rangers guru Evan Grant revealed what most fans already suspected with their inconsistent offense

Evan Grant, the Rangers beat writer who is one of the most trusted sources of information in all of Arlington-land, wrote after the 12-2 mercy rule thumping by an awful Twins team on Tuesday, "Time-saving life hack: The next time you turn on or attend a Rangers game and the opponent scores at least two runs in the first inning, quietly pick up your remote or pack up your belongings and you can save a good two-plus hours."

That's a rough thing to say about the hometown team, but the statistics bear it out. In the 14 games when the Rangers allow more than one first-inning run, they are 0-14. They average just a tick over 2 runs per game and lose by an average of 3.86 runs.

As Grant says, "The first inning turns the Rangers into zombies."

A sample size of 14 games suggests that this is far more than an anomaly. What it says about the team's intestinal fortitude is unclear, but the results speak for themselves. If you get the Rangers in a hole early on, they will roll over and die 100% of the time.

The Rangers' pitching staff leads the league by a wide margin in first-inning home runs given up, with a jaw-dropping 23. The next closest teams are the Royals, Giants, and Diamondbacks with 16.

Nathan Eovaldi, Jacob deGrom, and Jack Leiter have combined to give up 18 first-inning HRs. That is more than any other team by two. That is not what winning, playoff-contending teams do, and as much as we hate to call out Evo, he leads the league in this category with eight, and deGrom is third with six.

This team is not nearly efficient or potent enough offensively to be spotting teams multiple run leads early. This is a squad that is at its best when it can scratch out 5 or 6 runs and get the game to Jakob Junis and Jacob Latz in the 7th and 8th innings.

If this trend doesn't change, the Rangers can kiss the postseason goodbye.

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