Rangers offensive problems will never go away with a lineup like this one

The Texas Rangers were blanked for the 12th time this season after an embarassing 4-0 shutout loss to the Los Angeles Angels on Monday.

It's no surprise either when Bruce Bochy is writing the same names on the lineup card day-after-day and expecting different results that just aren't coming.

Rangers' lineup construction lessening their ability to shine

Maybe this is all they have left to give this year. I hope that's the case because the other alternative would be that Bochy and his coaching staff have no idea what they are doing and just grasping at straws.

When Texas took the field to start the series against the Angels on Monday, the Rangers batted four hitters throughout the game with a batting average in the .100s.

To be fair, that doesn't tell the full picture. Joc Pederson was one of those hitters but since the calendar turned to August he's been hitting close to .300 for the month. The other three were players who's big league time has been limited this year in Cody Freeman, Michael Helman and Alejandro Osuna.

But instead of the better offensive catcher in Kyle Higashioka, Bochy went with Jonah Heim behind the dish on Monday. Instead of finding a spot for the red hot Ezequiel Duran to play, he limited him to a pinch hit appearance.

Lineup does damage when constructed properly

When we look at the Rangers body of work on offense this season, of course we see the lack of success with runners in scoring position and the dreaded 18-25 record in one-run games.

I want to point you in the direction of their record in margins of five or more runs. That would be 22-13 in games of 5+ more run margins. It's those 22 games that are more indicitative and what this team could've been this year.

This season, Texas has used over 40 different lineups throughout the regular season all of which that have taken into account the Rangers' platoon advantages.

So where does he go from here? While our "perfect starting lineup" doesn't exist anymore due to various injuries, I hope over the final month of the season they stop taking a platoon-matchup approach and just allow players to go out and play baseball with zero worries.