Rangers watching as Astros are coming unglued at the best possible time, but there's a twist

It's fair to look back at the trade deadline and feel as if Chris Young and the Texas Rangers could've done more. Chase Silseth has had moments, but overall he has a 4.50 ERA in Arlington. Adam Macko has been nothing more than a shuttle arm. Logan O'Hoppe? Might as well plaster his face on every milk carton in North Texas.

But it could always be worse. You could be the Houston Astros. The Rangers' intra-state rival made just one move at the deadline, acquiring Daulton Varsho from the Toronto Blue Jays in exchange for starting pitcher Spencer Arrighetti. The move was yet another entry in former Astros general manager Dana Brown's quest to land an impact left-handed-hitting outfielder. Houston would fire Brown just three weeks later.

Has Varsho made an impact? One could say yes; however, with a .172/.224/.311 and -0.3 fWAR over 41 games in Houston, it was a negative one. Compounding the Astros' problem is the news that Varsho is hitting the IL due to cysts in his wrist, an issue that has plagued him for three months and, embarrassingly, was not picked up on (or possibly just ignored) in a pre-trade physical.

Even worse for Houston is the fact that their already flimsy and weak starting rotation has been terrible of late. Over their last three games, they saw right-hander Christian Javier leave after two innings with a strained right groin, then got 2 2/3 innings of three-run ball from rookie Ethan Pecko, followed by 2 2/3 innings and four earned runs from Peter Lambert.

Arrighetti has been awful for Toronto, with a 6.35 ERA that led the club to bump him to the bullpen, but he showed earlier in the year that he was capable of stringing some hot starts together. At the very least, if Houston had him now, they'd have another option to try to give them some length and save their battered bullpen.

While the Astros fall apart, the Rangers still aren't out of the woods in the AL West race

After briefly resurfacing as an AL West threat, the Seattle Mariners have been eliminated from the division race. With the Mariners out and the Astros seemingly holding on by a thread, we should feel pretty good about the Rangers' playoff odds, right? Not quite.

FanGraphs still only gives Texas a 29.3% chance of making the playoffs. Houston checks in with a 70.7% probability of playing in October. Both teams are 79-80, but the Astros hold the tiebreaker. With just three games remaining, that means the pressure is on the Rangers to win out, plus they need the Astros to lose at least one of their three remaining matchups against the Athletics. Texas can only afford a loss if the Rangers lose too, but again, that will only have them keeping pace and ultimately falling short due to that tiebreaker.

And while the Astros' pitching staff is in rough shape, Texas's hurlers aren't much better off. Jacob deGrom and Makenzie Gore are battling nagging injuries. The bullpen has been inconsistent.

Houston is sending ace Hunter Brown to the mound tonight, hoping that he can get deep into the game and give their overworked pen a much-needed break. Brown is still walking too many batters, but has gotten much better results of late than he did during his mid-season struggles.

Meanwhile, the Rangers will kick off their series against the Minnesota Twins with Jacob deGrom on the mound. These two aces, indirectly, might decide the division winner tonight.

The Astros are on the ropes, but they're not dead yet. If they end up besting the Rangers, it will be that July 31-August 2 sweep that Texas suffered in Houston that might make all the difference. Not only could that prove to be a pivot point in the head-to-head competition, but it was the deciding factor in Chris Young's decision to not pursue deadline upgrades as aggressively as we would have liked.

If only the Rangers had taken care of business then, we'd be having much different conversations today.

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