Texas Rangers News: Offensive surges, Rookie of the Year race, 2025 MLB Draft

The last week few series for the Texas Rangers have been what the fanbase was hoping to experience from the 2025 season, with a lot of high-powered offensive production and on point pitching.

It's resulted in the Rangers being winners of three of their five last games and winners of their last two and remain three games below .500 and look to close out the series against the Twins with a win on Thursday afternoon.

Alongside that, the pitching has stayed course, including good outsings from Tyler Mahle, Jacob deGrom, Patrick Corbin and Jack Leiter in this stretch. All signs are finally looking up, it's all about if it can be potentially sustainable.

Rangers recent offensive outburst is good sign for turnaround

It feels as if we've been talking about the offensive struggles all season long, because we have, that it makes talking about their successes that much more enjoyable.

Over the last five games, Texas has scored 27 runs and have pushed their run differntial to a positive for the first time it what seems like forever. Of course a lot of that was done by their 16-4 outburst win over Minnesota on Tuesday night.

Noticeable, we've been seeing the resurgences of Marcus Semien and Evan Carter, which are truly the glue to everything offensively. Once they get rolling, it allows the rest of the offense to feed off their success and come into their own. We are still missing the typical production from Wyatt Langford and Corey Seager but once that comes around, mixed with the pitching, this team could be a real threat in the second half.

Is Jack Leiter in the AL Rookie of the Year conversation yet?

No way are we saying Leiter should win the American League Rookie of the Year award, but he should for sure be in the conversation.

The 25-year-old right-hander started the year off looking like a brand new pitcher, surrendering only one run in his first two games capped off by five shutout innings against the Reds on April 2. It however came to a screeching halt that same day because of a blister that sidelined him for a couple of weeks.

Looking like his early season self, Leiter has shined in two of his last three starts against the Cardinals and Rays. For the season, he's made 11 starts for a 3.88 ERA with 45 strikeouts and a 1.24 WHIP. While they are a solid turnaround from his 2024 numbers, they still don't beat out the award's frontrunner in A's infielder Jacob Wilson.

One month until 2025 MLB Draft

We are pretty much one month away from the 2025 MLB Draft and with the Rangers holding the No. 12 pick, Texas should have a good pick of the field for a potential future face of their organization.

A huge consensus among baseball writers is Texas will end up selecting one of the highly touted prep infielders making waves early. It's also a possibility that Texas seems to go with a player close to their intended championship window and go after a college option, including Wake Forest's Marek Houston or Texas A&M's Jace LaViolette.

The latter fits the trend of Chris Young's draft history, as he's selected a college player in the last three drafts: Jack Leiter, Kumar Rocker and Malcom Moore.

First round of the draft kicks off July 13 on ESPN and MLB Network at 5 p.m. Therefore, Texas has time to make their choice and whether or not the team believes in their future build.