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10 walks, 8 hits, 18 total baserunners. In the postgame Skip said he's not frustrated with the offense. The annoying part is, dude might have a point.
But with just 28 games left, how much longer can Texas afford to simply just trust the process? Hi and welcome to another edition of Right on Rangers Live. Coming at you after the Rangers drop a series against the White Sox. They lose 10 to 4 today and drop to 66 and 68 on the season.
Crazy series receipts here coming your way. Texas scored 22 runs in this series. By all accounts, a pretty huge success.
Texas has had its issues, especially post-All-Star, scoring runs consistently over the course of a 3- or 4-game set. Chicago, 23 runs scored. The difference between the two offenses, one run.
And isn't it odd how the series felt a lot more lopsided than that at times. Rangers ultimately lost 2 out of 3 after winning a very important game 1. I always say this, I know it's not rocket science, but winning game 1 of a series so huge. There have been a couple of times where the Rangers have done that.
I think back to the Angels series, where the Rangers won a Monday night game and proceeded to lose Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. It's not money, but it has not worked out for Texas consistently. Getting the first game and then coming up short immediately afterwards to finish out the set.
On Wednesday, Texas, we said in the opener, 10 walks, 8 hits, 18 total baserunners. 4 runs scored tonight. I think that is the most crazy thing when you consider and at one point in the game, you had 8 walks and only 2 runs scored.
I know Texas made it a little bit more interesting late, but that was a wild stat to me. And full disclosure, back to school night, going to meet the teacher for the kiddos and all that good stuff. Missed a little bit of the first part of the game, was able to get caught up.
But when I was checking the box score here and there, you're seeing the walks start mounting and almost every inning on my phone with the live notifications that you get on the lock screen, every top half, you're seeing Texas has traffic. And they're just not able to come through. 2-for-14 with runners in scoring position, 12 left on base.
Now juxtapose that with Chicago, who went 7-for-11 with runners in scoring position, were able to make a lot more of the opportunities that they created. Texas again falls 2 games under .500. And still, only a half game behind Houston.
That makes little to no sense to me, but this is the AL and the AL West in 2026. 28 games remaining and the Rangers yet to really feel like they've hit a stride this year. And there've been glimpses, there've been flashes.
We talked about this last night, but they have yet to hit that really consistent winning stride that everyone, I think every diehard fan is waiting for. You are waiting for the flip to switch for the switch to flip, excuse me, long day. You're waiting for that switch to flip.
And it just hasn't happened yet. It feels like it happens maybe for an individual player too. But then the switch flips to off for another player or for another component of the team quickly afterwards.
Now you go into the off day, you head to Milwaukee. We're going to preview the Milwaukee series, but I can't imagine there's a lot of Rangers fans thinking positive thoughts about the weekend series with the Brewers. The only positive little preview for later on in the show that the only positives I see Texas has generally played up to the competition against good teams this year.
That doesn't mean they've always won series, but you feel like they've always to an extent played up to the level of whoever their opponent is. And they play down to the level of whoever their opponent is. We've seen that with the A's and Angels quite frequently.
The other positive Cal Quantrill pitching in a series. We have slowly over the course of this 2026 year seen the rise of Quantrill from getting shelled in Surprise to being arguably the team's most reliable and most elite starting pitcher, especially in the aftermath of what we watched tonight with MacKenzie Gore and with Jacob deGrom. Now let's get back to the Skip argument.
If you will, Skip saying postgame that he's okay with what the offense did tonight. I think that there have been a few different times where you've seen Skip express frustration. There's a lot of times postgame where you've seen Skip go glass half full.
And generally speaking, I think Skip's theory on the offense is accurate. When you do put baserunners on the chances of you actually coming through and scoring runs are high. I mean, it's a simple math equation.
Generate baserunners, generate traffic. Typically, that's going to go well for you. If you repeatedly generate that kind of traffic, if you're doing this every single game, the run should come for this Texas team, though, in 2026, that is what makes them a bit of an enigma.
It hasn't happened. We've chronicled the team's lack of success with the bases loaded. We have chronicled this team's inability at times to come through with the big hit.
Yes, the team actually as a whole has decent numbers with runners in scoring position has a decent OPS with runners in scoring position. I think the average with RISP might be in the top 10, like at No. 10. I think the OPS is in the ballpark of the top 10, but maybe not quite.
But of course, not all scoring position chances are created equal. You feel like Texas leaves a lot of meat on the bone offensively. That's the eye test.
That is the true eye test. And I think in the fans' minds, sure, if the Rangers come through with runners in scoring position when they're already down seven or eight runs, clearly that's not as impactful as when the game is on the line and you need a big hit. The offense does appear like they're beginning to click.
I think the Chicago series, you felt like they're turning a little bit of a corner, but it was just marred by the pitching. You had Jacob deGrom melting down yesterday, getting maybe a little bit unfortunate with soft contact, but you know, again, not a lot of bats were missed. We talked about this last night.
Jacob deGrom was not missing bats. He was walking five total walks. And again, compare that with what the Rangers did tonight.
They got a bunch of walks and unlike Chicago against deGrom, were not able to put the ball in play, take advantage. Look, all of this is to say, I do think if you look at Skip's comments consistently, bringing this full circle to his postgame presser, he has expressed frustration with the bases loaded. In June, he acknowledged that Texas was creating traffic, but not scoring enough at that point.
Clearly you're still early in the season. July came around and they had the White Sox series in Arlington and he admitted in July that bases loaded situations had been a problem essentially all season. And they had to figure out a way to cash those opportunities.
So you saw him in July, dog days of summer, get a little bit real about the offense. And now, I mean, interestingly, the message from Skip, maybe it's just trying to be rah-rah cheerleader, Mr. Positive after a really tough series loss. But I just feel like the message has now gone more glass half full suddenly.
And I definitely feel like the offense is looking better than what they have, but situational execution has absolutely hurt this team. And creating 18 baserunners is still an encouraging process. It's encouraging.
I definitely look at what the offense generated in last night's ball game. And I feel like if they are able to do that more times than not, they probably will score some runs. But the real question here, how much runway does eventually have left? You don't really have a lot of time here.
You've got 28 games. You don't have the entire summer to figure this out. You've got four weeks of baseball to prove that you belong in the playoffs.
And look, maybe you don't even have to prove it with the teams that are around you, with Houston above you, Seattle right below you in the standings. Maybe you don't have to prove it. Maybe the Rangers are just going to get an early Christmas gift and they won't prove much of anything.
But you know what, the AL West and the AL in general, so much parity, so much mediocrity that it'll just be on a silver platter. They're waiting for them at the end of September. Who knows? Look, let's explore a couple of things here.
Clearly, we all know that baseball analytics are a part of the game. Advanced stats are a part of the game. And they're really designed to separate process from outcomes.
And you saw a lot of that with Jacob deGrom last night or a couple of nights ago, I should say. I know most of y'all are going to be hearing this on Thursday morning, right? And so that's something that I think has recently come into play in baseball. Definitely wasn't something in the late 90s that was happening a lot.
Even in the early 2000s, you weren't seeing a lot of baseball analytics come into fan discussions. Even, you know, SportsCenter, things of that nature. I mean, not a lot of people were talking about, you know, expected wOBA and, you know, OPS+ and all of this.
It's really been a more recent phenomenon within the last decade or so. I think we're talking generally here. I'm not saying that, you know, smaller circles and certain individuals haven't been doing this for much longer, but baseball analytics are a big part of the game now.
And that's useful because one night in a vacuum can tell a lie. One night, you can have really good process and the outcome isn't there. But look, standings are what ultimately determine outcomes, right? You have wins, you have losses, and you can't always pat yourself on the back with the process.
You can't always make yourself feel better, cope with the advanced stats. Advanced stats coping is something that I have really tried to stay away from. I do think that it's something that you can kind of use as grace for a team, for a player, but it's not something that you puff your chest out with.
You know, if a guy is O for 40, he's O for 40. Like no advanced stat is going to make me feel better about that. And even as a ballplayer, I didn't play at a high level.
I played in high school. I played a little bit in college, was never like Mr. Big Time Starter, got my opportunities here and there. So look, full disclosure there, right? I've always also just getting into a tangent myself.
You don't have to have been a top level baseball player to be able to talk good baseball. And that's something that I've really committed to. You either have a good point or you don't.
I don't really care how much you played the game. Either you're making a good point or you're not making a good point. Look, going back to Texas and the process and Skip in the postgame, nobody's giving Texas expected wins for creating traffic.
It's not how it works. And a playoff race does not care about the process. It doesn't.
You're hoping that things work out positively when you have good process, but when you're getting into September or just a few days away from the calendar turning, the process I think becomes less important. You need to start prioritizing wins. And I think that again, use it as grace.
Use it as a small reason why you can feel confident or optimistic that maybe the team does have a run in them. But we can't be championing process over outcomes at this point in the season, this late. Now, if Texas gets 18 on base tomorrow, do we want them to change the offensive approach? I would say absolutely not.
Of course you want those 18 baserunners. So I mean, this isn't a total stop trusting the process. It's just more of a caution.
The process has to start producing and it has to start producing while there's still time for those results to actually matter. Again, the weirdest wrinkle in all this 22 runs were scored by the offense in Chicago. I mean, again, at the beginning of the White Sox series, if you just said they're going to score 22 runs, the Rangers will in this series over the three games you're doing the math in your head.
Okay. Seven, seven runs a game. The offense is going to put up seven plus every game in this series on average.
Yes, please. Just based on how everything else has gotten this year with the pitching and all the bullpens had its ups and downs, but you're thinking, oh yeah, absolutely. Here we go.
It just did not work out. That's how baseball go. As the great Ron Washington has said, it's a weird game.
It's a beautiful game. You can score seven runs per game in a three-game set after so much offensive frustration scoring two, three runs a game and series previous. And here you are going to Milwaukee off day tomorrow with losing two out of three to the White Sox hanging over your head to, to bring this part, this segment, if you will, to a close look process, encouraging the result though, can still be unacceptable.
And I do think those two things should be allowed to exist in the same sentence. I don't think that you have to necessarily love one over the other, but I do air towards the side of outcomes over process as the calendar is fixing to turn to September. And, you know, honestly, Wednesday becomes a lot easier to understand when you stop pretending that this offense lost by itself.
Um, I know that we're talking a lot about the offense and we're talking about the baserunners and the missed opportunities, but, you know, going kind of, you know, game within the game, you really have this phenomenon with Texas of wasting an opportunity and then watching the other team in the next inning and the next half inning take advantage of those same opportunities. I tweeted during the game, how many times as the opponent like immediately scored after Texas misses an opportunity with runners in scoring position. And just think about that over the course of 134 games.
How many times do you think that's happened? I don't have the numbers on it. I should have come more prepared. I got a homework assignment to do, I guess, but it feels like a lot, whatever the number is, it feels like a lot.
And I don't know if there's anything provable here, but the eye test is, man, they burn the bases loaded in immediately afterwards Chicago or whoever they're playing, putting runs on the board right away. And I mean, look, that is not just on the offense. Like I said, I mean, that that's pitching.
I'm not saying there's a carryover effect necessarily with the starting pitchers. It is frustrating when you're a pitcher and you're watching your offense struggle. I've talked about this.
I think that it is very rare that a pitcher is totally able to compartmentalize a bad offense routinely playing behind them. You know, one night here or there, you don't get the run support. Sure.
But I do think that a lot of the Texas pitchers understand that, that there is a thin margin. We know that these guys can put runs on the board, but it has not been consistent over the course of this season. Yeah.
Stranding runners does not mathematically cause the other team to score. I don't want anybody to get this twisted. There's no mathematic equation there, but when you fail to punish the other team's mistakes, particularly a first place team like the White Sox, you give them another inning to punish yours.
And that is the baseball there, man. And that is exactly what has happened to Texas in a lot of their losses this season. You know, Burke, the starting pitcher for the White Sox, begging Texas all night long to take control with walks.
Texas kept generating traffic and the score really never ended up reflecting that traffic. Chicago put runners in scoring position pretty frequently, seven for 11. Once again, with those runners in scoring position, Texas two for 14.
That's not necessarily like clutch gene. I'm not going to sit here and pretend like Texas doesn't have anyone capable of coming through clutch, but one team was converting the opportunities that actually showed up and one team failed pretty miserably. And unfortunately that was our Rangers.
Texas though, overall, I think go glass half full here. They have some offensive life and now the pitching is what is stopping giving them the zeros that they were giving for a lot of the post-All-Star break era that we're in right now. I mean, that pitching was really, really good in the weeks following the All-Star break.
You look at MacKenzie Gore tonight, three and two thirds innings, four earned runs, eight hits, four walks. He did have four strikeouts before Wednesday Gore at a 3.32 ERA over his eight previous starts. That's the MacKenzie Gore that the Rangers traded for right there.
That is the guy that CY and company spent five prospects on, including Abi Ortiz and Gavin Fien. It was a bad Gore night. I don't want to sit here and be disingenuous.
You know, Gore sucks. He's awful. The trade's terrible.
Little prisoner of the moment. Gore has actually been pretty good of late, a guy that I was starting to trust a little bit more. And then last night happens and I'm not saying trust gone.
I'm not saying again, he needs to be thrown out of the rotation, but I am saying just when you were starting to trust this guy to be consistent, to be a reliable starting pitcher every fifth day, you have kind of a bedwetting like this. You really needed Gore to come shine and to help Texas get a series win going into a big three-game set against the Brewers. It's big because you're playing a really good team.
Brewers are what, 31 games over .500, and they've won seven of their last 10, as I said earlier in the show, but also because by the time the Brewer series is over, you're going to have just 25 games left in the year. You just never would have expected at the onset of this series. You know, Tuesday, Jacob deGrom, Wednesday, MacKenzie Gore.
I think looking at that on Sunday night, as I was preparing for the White Sox series and covering it, you feel pretty good about having those two guys closing out the series. And so when you win Monday, the rocker start that the non deGrom Gore start, you're feeling outstanding. It going back to that Angels series that the Rangers dropped in Anaheim a few weeks ago, they beat Andrew Heaney Monday night.
And it was then three straight games of kind of mid starting pitching coming up from the Angels. A lot of guys who are green recently called up making major league debuts. And you're feeling awesome that you made it past the one guy that you kind of had circled.
And then we all know what happened next. And I think this series, a similar feel a similar connection. You I don't want to say survive the rocker start because he has had his good moments.
But I'm going to say you survived the rocker start. It wasn't great. It wasn't terrible.
But Kumar rocker got hit around pretty hard in the first couple of innings. Brandon Nimmo makes an incredible catch to stop it from being four earned runs for Kumar. Kumar walks around.
He works around some walks in that third inning, walks a tightrope, gets out of a bases loaded jam, and then settles in for the fourth, fifth inning, gets into a little bit more trouble in the sixth, but gets pulled. Rangers are able to win the game ultimately. But then you get into Tuesday, Wednesday, and you're just not able to string together one win, two wins, I guess, technically in the series, right? But you're just not able to finish it off with two of your best pitchers.
If not your two starting pitchers, not named Cal Quantrill that you trust the most. They combined for seven and a third and 12 earned runs, did deGrom and MacKenzie Gore. And that was again after Texas won Monday, 11 to two.
That's brutal. That is brutal. Seven and a third innings combined from deGrom and Gore, 12 earned runs. Starting pitching, at the onset of the season in spring training,
I think most Rangers fans agreed starting pitching was supposed to carry this club. That's been a defining construction point of this team all year long. And we know that even going back 24, 25, that was a point of emphasis as well.
We're going to pitch really, really well from a starting pitching perspective, from a bullpen perspective. And our offense is going to give us just enough. Yeah, we would love for the offense to play above-average, but we're counting on our offense giving us just enough.
And by and large, the formula has been, if the rotation can give you innings in quality, Texas can survive an imperfect offense. But when the rotation suddenly can't even get through four full innings, three and two thirds from Gore last night, the entire roster totally just stress test differently. It's just not a working equation when you're not getting quality starting pitching.
And I didn't even say elite. I just said quality. We have not gotten quality starting pitching over the last two games.
And so it's not a shock that even with the offense showing out a little bit, the Rangers still aren't able to make it happen. Two ugly starts from deGrom and Gore. They don't invalidate who these guys are.
deGrom and Gore, I think are two quality above-average pitchers, regardless of what has happened tonight. I know MacKenzie Gore, excuse me, hasn't pitched like the solid No. 3 that they thought that they were going to get when they traded for him. And as I've said really consistently over the last month or so of that eight-start stretch where Gore had the 3.32 ERA, if MacKenzie Gore can give you a solid five weeks of baseball here, or let's just say, you know, month and a half to two months.
If we're feeling real, real confident about the Rangers going on a run, if he can just go on a elite level or strong above-average level of play over the last two months here, the first four months of the year, forgettable, forgivable, whatever adjective you want to throw in there. I think it's going to be pretty easy to forget about MacKenzie Gore's rollercoaster ride over the first four months of the year. If he can really make these last two months count.
Tonight was not a good start towards that, but nevertheless, you've got an opportunity to still make the playoffs. You're still just that half game behind. The whole season is still right there in front of Texas.
I think anybody pretending like they are just done for no shot. That's just being disingenuous. Is it fair? Like I said yesterday on the pod, is it fair to not trust this team? Absolutely.
It is fair to not trust this team. Is it fair to say they're absolutely done and have no chance of doing anything this year? No, that's, that's not fair at all. They do.
They've got a legitimate chance to win a playoff game to maybe go on a little run, but it's going to take everything clicking at one time. And that's just something that hasn't quite happened with this team. I'm not panicking on deGrom and Gore.
I'm not, I'm a little concerned, but I'm not hitting the panic button yet on those guys. Let's see how they respond in the next start. Yeah.
These were two games where we had premium pitching lined up and could have won the series. And that is disappointing. It's why the series hurts.
You had things lined up well, and you didn't ultimately get it done. And the offense finally gave you runs finally seven runs plus per game to be specific. And those two arms that I would say again, put Cal Quantrill up there, but two of the arms that you trust most in the rotation just never really gave the offense a stable game to work with.
But look, there were still some individual offensive performances that I think are worth separating from the record. So let's get into a couple of them. So look a little new segment, if you will, stock up, stock down here, stock up.
Let's start there. Let's start with the positive Joc Pederson Homer for the second straight day to run shot on Wednesday. He had a home run on Tuesday as well for a guy who has definitely had a lot of criticism thrown his way over his tenure with the Texas Rangers from me included.
You have to give Joc credit. He was in a little over 20 something stretch, and now he's managed to turn it back on at least over the last few games here. Good for him.
I always say this, I will criticize when things are not going well. I will criticize when criticism is warranted. But I will also give praise even if it means I have to kind of take an opposing viewpoint to my criticism.
I guess the thing that always makes me laugh is there's sometimes no winning in this business. If I criticize a player, there's just in some people's minds, no option or ability for me to be positive about them. If I was once negative, is this you? And they copy and paste the tweet from two months ago when you were criticizing the player.
Why are you hyping him up now? You were being negative about him in May, like, because things change, right? You have new information. And so new opinions can form. But I've always been a proponent of, if you're going to criticize loudly, praise loudly.
Joc, I would love for him to be an everyday player. He's been one of the best Rangers hitters when he's in the lineup, clearly primarily playing against righties. I think you would love in an ideal world for Joc to be an everyday guy.
He's not comfortable against lefties. The Rangers have made a business decision, a team decision, a Joc decision to not play him against left-handed pitching unless the game really calls for it, right? You might have to stomach a lefty-lefty to keep Joc in the game for a late plus advantage AB. And they've done that a few times.
Look, two good days. And really, honestly, even the season, I think that Joc's having this year doesn't totally erase what happened last year. But nevertheless, what he has done to help catapult this offense at times is very meaningful.
And I think that you have to show Joc some love for what he's been able to accomplish, for how he's been able to bounce back. One of the bounce back bets that CY and the front office got right would have been, I think, attempting to pull the trigger on a Joc Pederson dismissal early on in the year. Spring training didn't go well.
It wasn't an awesome start to his first week, week and a half of baseball. And from there, he's taken off. And so in terms of this season, the beginning of this season, I was wrong on Joc last year.
I think it's plenty fair to criticize what Joc Pederson didn't do, getting paid $18.5 million to DH against righties. I think the criticism last year was incredibly fair. Was the criticism this year totally unfair? No, because of what he did last year.
But I will admit, I put out multiple times, not sure how much longer you can hold on to Joc. And quickly, after a lot of people started throwing that out there, who could forget the boos that he got in one of the first home series after I think he started, whatever it was, over 17 or 18 or whatever. He's turned it on and good for him.
Wyatt Langford, let's talk Wyatt. Reached base five times, two hits, three walks. That's the kind of play discipline and traffic creation that you want from a guy that the Rangers have consistently hit in the top three.
If he reaches five times, the rest of the lineup has to cash some of it. You would love for Wyatt to be the one cashing it. It just didn't work out that way in this game.
But good signs from Wyatt Langford, who definitely went on a bit of a cold stretch. He had that game, what, three weeks ago, four weeks ago, it feels like, where he fouled the ball off himself multiple times. Kind of feels like he's been a little off since then.
You kind of wonder what some of his outfield play he had two nights ago, the really bad throw and letting a baseball kind of drop right in front of him. It's been a little weird out in the outfield with Wyatt. He's had some really great defensive plays.
He's definitely been asked to do a lot out there playing center field at times. It seems like though they're a lot more comfortable with Zeke playing center field, who's another guy I want to talk about stock up here. Zeke, two hits a walk, two RBI, another productive game for the Rangers utility man.
Zeke Duran, I don't think enough people are singing his praises. I know some Rangers fans are, but I mean, this is a guy that's playing all over the baseball field and you look at the advanced stats, we were talking about those earlier, and this is an elite fielder. This guy could very easily win the utility Gold Glove.
I think he's got to be up at number one on that list. I'd love to see the other players. Maybe I'm forgetting somebody, but I mean, this guy has played above-average defense.
Like you look at his outs above-average at third, you look at short, you look in the outfield, like he has no position this year where he has any kind of negative DRS or OAA. It's really incredible considering how much the Rangers have had him move all over the field. He has had multiple recent moments where he's contributing no matter where he has given the opportunity.
And I said, when Josh Jung comes back, I said this like a week ago, got a little pushback because I know there's a lot of Rangers fans that really love Josh Jung, and I'm a Josh Jung fan too. I want to see Josh do well. I do really feel like Josh has become a bit one-dimensional this year.
The defense has been poor. We know Josh isn't the best base runner. The arm is okay.
The bat's been really, really good. And that's honestly what has carried his season. And I think the Rangers do miss the bat of Josh Jung.
I don't know how they go back to Jung at third base, watching Zeke play third, watching even Cody Freeman play third. Cody has had some outstanding defensive plays over the course of really the last month or so since he has been back up with the team. I mean, give me Cody Freeman at the hot corner.
Give me Zeke Duran at the hot corner all day long over Josh. They might have to stomach it this year just because of how the roster is constructed. I do think the offseason, one of the big things of many, I think there's a number of things the Rangers need to attend to this offseason, but one of the things I'd like to see them do is address third base.
Do you want to convert Josh Jung to more of a DH type? You want to convert Josh Jung to first base? What do you do with Jake Burger? I just don't think they can trot Josh back out there at third. I guess if Josh really gets in the lab over the summer and gets his game at third back to where it was a few years ago. Yeah, sure.
But I feel like at this point it is going to be a tall task and the Rangers unfortunately are going to have to do a lot of hoping and a lot of praying in the offseason to really come to a good solid standing and belief in that department because the MLB evidence isn't there. And this is a, what have you done for me lately league? I don't know how the Rangers in good conscience go back to JJ at the hot corner. Can you make him a guy who DHs against lefties kind of have him bump Foscue out of that role? I think so.
I know there's a number of people that really feel like JF, uh, that Foscue has solidified himself. I've said many times, I don't think Justin Foscue is irreplaceable in the lineup. I think he is a guy that's had some good moments this year, but if you could potentially put Josh Jung at that DH spot against a lefty starter, and then maybe you stomach him against righties at the hot corner, or, you know, you play him at first base here and there.
I don't think that that's going to be something they do this year. If I'm just totally keeping it real. I know we throw around position changes a lot, moving to first base in the middle of a playoff race is not ideal.
Let's just say that I think in the offseason, that could be something you explore moving them over there. I think the plan for me, that's actually reasonable and realistic is you have Josh DH against lefties and you stomach the defense when a righty is on the mound, that that would be my Josh Jung plan stock down MacKenzie Gore tonight only though. I mean, it is a little bit of a knee jerk reaction, but yeah, like I said, I would be remiss to not say the trust level went down a little bit.
It did. You just starting to trust MacKenzie and then in a big game, this is what you get. It's unfortunate.
The timing just not great. I'm not throwing in the towel on Gore by any stretch, but you would have loved to have seen Gore meet the moment tonight. Just like you would love to have seen deGrom do that.
Now, like not, not everyone is going to be a leverage monster. Not everyone is going to be able to lock in playoff mode, October mode when you need it most, but when you've got your starting pitchers, not even going four, you're exposing pieces that were really never built to carry that much game. I do think MacKenzie Gore was brought here to really solidify a winning rotation.
I'm not sure how much the Rangers envisioned him being this big game pitcher. I do think MacKenzie Gore was a little bit more of depth, but high-end depth. I think you figured we've got Evo.
We've got deGrom. Those are the big game guys. And MacKenzie gives us that really, really above-average solid Game 3 starter.
That just hasn't worked out great so far. And look, the bullpen probably worth talking about as well. I kind of keep coming back to them as I think about the roster build.
We know that this team did not plan well in the offseason with the pen. You had Robert Garcia and Chris Martin as the anchors of this bullpen in surprise. Skip Schumaker came out week one and was already talking about Robert Garcia, Chris Martin splitting time.
Everything trickles down from there. You're seeing Robby Ahlstrom struggle a little bit. You've seen Peyton Gray struggle a little bit.
You've seen other middle relief guys, Cole Winn struggle. All of this to me stems from the fact that you anchored, you built your bullpen around Robert Garcia and Chris Martin. And it just failed miserably.
Robert Garcia, I know has been hurt. Chris Martin hurt, but ineffective. I mean, that is a total misfire.
It's a huge misfire. And so naturally, as a result of that misfire, you have guys like Ahlstrom and Gray pitching more than what you probably would have liked them to in their rookie season and pitching in higher leverage than what you would have liked them to in their rookie season. I mean, look, the bullpen really early on worked out really, really well.
And I think a lot of us were singing CY's praises. How does he keep getting away with this? The classic Breaking Bad meme can't keep getting away with this bullpen spare change. And you're just continuing to put together a really good product.
Look, I think it was a 2.74 bullpen ERA after 34 games. The first 34 games, it was an MLB-best 2.74. I mean, that definitely matters.
That's not nothing. But look, if you pretend that the entire bullpen construction was like broken from opening day, I think you could probably push back against that pretty hard. And I'm not saying that either.
But what I am saying is, when you have Chris Martin and Robert Garcia as your anchors, it doesn't mean that everybody in the bullpen, the whole bullpen is a failure. But there's no denying how much stress that put on the rest of the guys in the organization. When you have those two players, really face plant Robert Garcia, call it unlucky with the injuries.
But Chris Martin, a bit of a face plant, 9.00 ERA, he was DFA and eventually dealt with injuries. It just didn't work out. The mistake in my mind was those specific bets.
And I do think going along with that, the Rangers failed to build enough around those guys. You had Tyler Alexander, Junis one-year deals. I just think the Rangers needed to add more.
I would have liked to have seen them add more than Chase Silseth at the deadline. Bullpens can be volatile. If we're defending CY here, bullpens can be volatile.
There are cheap relievers that become stars every single year, not just in the Rangers bullpen around the league. It happens every single year. You get a cheap relief pitcher that ends up being really, really good.
I do still submit like with Robert Garcia, they asked way too much of him way too quick. They were thrusting him into the eighth and ninth inning in his first year with the club. It's not ideal for a guy that really didn't have a ton of experience with the Nationals.
I really don't know what they were thinking, bringing back Chris Martin on a $4 million contract. I know that he was good when he was healthy in 2025, but the injuries enough were plenty for me to say, no, thank you. I like Chris, Arlington guy, my alma mater, Arlington High. Chris Martin graduated a few years ahead of me, but look, Chris's injuries last year should have kept you away.
And for whatever reason, CY decided that it was going to work out this year and it didn't. It didn't, you know, Robby Ahlstrom. I think Ahlstrom, looking at the pen right now, is going to take a lot of crap.
And he gave up a number of runs in this series. I personally just have a really hard time coming down on a rookie that really shouldn't have been dependent upon this year to be in leverage, to be used this much. Now is the flip side like, man, he's getting the opportunity.
You got to make the most of it. Yeah. That doesn't get erased, but I do think in an ideal world where you build the bullpen, not around Chris Martin, Robert Garcia, you probably don't have to use Ahlstrom in the roles that you're asking of him.
And they've had to use Robbie in some big moments. You think about the Toronto series where they swept, they were bringing Robbie in, in some big moments. And a big part of that is because they've lacked bullpen depth.
I still think the bullpen roster construction deserves criticism. I'm never going to feel differently about that. And it all started from that announcement from Skip in Surprise, without even having seen a lot of guys compete in pitch.
It's going to be, you know, Garcia and Martin in the ninth. I think from that moment on, the skepticism started skyrocketing for me. I just think here, the better criticism is that there was just never enough margin for the things that are inevitably going to go wrong over the course of 162 games.
The early success proves that this plan that CY put together could work, but August is really testing whether or not it was built to last. And at this point, I do think you have to question, is this bullpen really built to last deep into October? I'm a bit skeptical at this point, like the offense, you're hoping that the bullpen catches fire, gets on a bit of a heater and starts throwing up zeros more consistently, but that is easier said than done. And now, by the way, Texas gets to go ahead and take all of these unresolved problems into Milwaukee.
Perfect. Here we go, baby. And so look, let's talk a little bit about the Milwaukee series here to end the show.
Texas made the path harder again. Every loss, you create less error, less margin for error for yourself, but the path is still sitting there. Again, the Rangers are only a half game behind Houston.
You do have the tiebreaker to worry about, right? So, I mean, you have to be a game clear of Houston essentially. So I kind of think about it as like you're a game and a half behind, right? Because eventually you're all going to have played 162. Milwaukee though, sitting at 82 and 51.
My goodness, 31 games above .500. What is that like? 31 games above .500. My goodness.
Friday is Cody Bradford versus Logan Henderson and Saturday, Cal Quantrill against Shane Drohan. Hope I'm getting that right. This is absolutely a series when you look at the pitching that could line up nicely.
Cody Bradford is going to get his first big test though. I think that's a little bit of the concern for me in Friday night. Cody's pitched against, I believe, the Giants, Angels, and A's.
He has not pitched against really any good teams. And so I'm a little bit anxious to see how he does against one of the better teams in baseball. I think a lot of us are rooting for Cody to succeed.
Clearly the ERA looks pretty good early on, but I do think in the back of your mind, you wonder, he got a pretty soft landing, San Francisco, you know, Angels twice, the A's. Now the dude's got to go and face one of the big boys, Milwaukee, one of the best teams in baseball. And so I think this could be a really solid statement game for Cody Bradford if he's able to come out and do his thing.
And you already know, I think if you've been watching Cal Quantrill throw the baseball over the last month and a half, you've got to be feeling pretty good about Saturday, at least Cal keeping you in a ball game. You know, given what he's been doing lately, there has to be some earned comfort there. Like if you're still kind of doubting whether or not Cal is going to come through, I think it's a little bit unfair.
Maybe some of y'all are still waiting for him to fall off a cliff here. Like, man, he's just getting lucky. He's getting fortunate.
And you go look at the numbers, you go look at Baseball Savant. He's got some red for sure. He's definitely out there, you know, not just getting lucky in my humble opinion.
And I think that the stats back that up. I think Cal is probably the most trusted starting pitcher right now in the rotation. Doesn't mean he's going to be the Game 1 starter, but I do think he is the guy to be trusted at this point, more than any other arm, including Jacob deGrom.
I feel better that Cal is going to at least go five or six innings, two to three earned runs or less compared to Jacob deGrom. With deGrom, I feel like it's feast or famine. I'm going to get a really elite start where he strikes out 10 or I'm going to get a start where, you know, he gives up 10 hits or 10 baserunners and four or five earned runs later, he's leaving in the fifth inning.
Cal is probably the most trusted in my mind. Maybe he will work his way into a game one or Game 2 start. Who knows? He keeps doing this.
It's going to be hard to ignore. It's going to be hard to keep him away from those earned places in this Rangers rotation. Sunday, Kumar Rocker versus Robert Gasser.
Rangers, it's worth noting here. They have lost six straight road series. It's definitely not something that I want to end or want to talk about last on the show.
We'll try and end positively, but it is worth mentioning. They've struggled to win road series and now they get a brutal opponent. I can't say I feel outstanding about a series win.
I think this is a weekend. You really hope the teams around Texas lose and maybe Texas gets a win. Maybe they steal two wins.
And I think if they do that, you got to feel amazing coming out of this weekend with Milwaukee going into the A's series back in Arlington at the start of next week. Here's, like, the optimistic angle, though, and I talked about this at the beginning of the show. Texas has weirdly played some really good teams very, very competitively.
They've played some of their better baseball, I feel like, against elite opponents. It doesn't mean they've always won games, but it feels like they have avoided really getting waxed by a good opponent. Three straight games.
It feels like they've had some really close games, like with the Dodgers, with the Yankees. It doesn't mean that the final results swung their way, but Texas has felt like a team that can compete with the upper echelon teams. Again, the result matters.
I don't want to pretend like it doesn't, but I don't feel like Texas is going to go into this series and just be totally non-competitive. I don't think that means that they're going to win two out of three or sweep a series, but I think they're going to make the series competitive. How many games they win? Not so sure, but at this point, maybe the fact that Milwaukee is good, is an elite team, will somehow wake up the Rangers and engage whatever it is deep down within these guys, within these players, that makes them rise above.
Well, here's hoping. Here is hoping. Final question here.
If the process is actually improving, Milwaukee's a pretty good place to prove that it can finally turn into results. Will the Rangers do that this weekend? You've had some good process with the offense. You've had some good performances.
Is Texas going to actually turn that process into results? Texas has spent a lot of this season waiting for everything to finally line up. There's 28 games left. 28.
No more, “it's early.” No more, “be patient.” There's 28 games left in this season.
At some point, though, eventually has to become right now. And look, we'll be here Thursday, off day tomorrow, rain or shine, we will be here covering the team that we love, the Texas Rangers weekend series. Friday night, we should be back to our live show format.
I have enjoyed doing the podcast format. I think I might get into it a little bit more. Honestly, might give me a little bit of an opportunity to mix things up, do a little bit of a different format, free up a little bit of time in my evenings to enjoy the games a little bit more.
I always enjoy doing the lives, but it is something I've been kicking around and so far liking it. Hope you guys have felt the same, but hope to see you guys over the weekend at some point. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, we will most likely be live eighth or ninth inning every game.
Catch us on YouTube or whatever major social media app you prefer. And we'll go from there, man. Hopefully we'll be talking about some Rangers wins or a series win if you join us a little later in the weekend, that'd be great.
And look, as I always say, and every single show, God bless and go Rangers.