Why it feels like the Rangers can never come back

Two of the worst defeats of the season for the Rangers (not in terms of runs scored, mind you, but in importance) came this week after the team saw leads of 5-0 and 4-0 evaporate in Tuesday and Wednesday nights’ games against the Twins.

Besides the obvious reason why those games were so disheartening (the wearing down of the Rangers’ starters, which is a post for another day), the tough part about watching the Rangers settle for a split against an inferior opponent was the lack of response by the Rangers offense after the Twins mounted a challenge. To their credit, the Rangers did respond to the Twins’ threat Thursday, but they also still had a three-run lead when they responded with a rally in the 6th inning.

But on Tuesday and especially Wednesday, the Rangers looked shell-shocked against the Twins bullpen. For the series, the Rangers scored a total of 7 runs off of the Twins bullpen and 29 total. Twenty-two runs off of Twins starting pitching, but only 7 against relievers. And five of those were in one game!

Jamey Newberg mentioned a few telling stats in his report that explain this fact from the Twins series: Starting in the sixth inning, the Rangers’ team OPS gets progressively worse as the game goes on. (7th worse than 6th, 8th worse than 7th, 9th worst of all) What does this mean? The Rangers probably aren’t going to lead the league in come-from-behind victories.

This team plays much better when it has a lead. Not reinventing the wheel here; most teams probably play better with a lead. But anytime this team gets behind, it doesn’t seem like they have much of a chance to come back and win.

That’s what made the losses this month so much harder: the two games against the Twins, the meltdowns against the Athletics and Red Sox – they were all games the Rangers had a lead in and should have been able to win. But that’s baseball.

Probably odd to write such a post after a game in which the Rangers actually kind of did come back to make a game of things tonight in Tampa, but it just never seemed like they truly had a chance tonight once Ben Zobrist went deep. Even then, they made Scott Kazmir look amazing.

The answer to the question I posed above is pretty simple. Most anybody who watches the Rangers on a consistent basis know why the Rangers don’t have the ability to come back from deficits.

It comes in three parts:

1. The Rangers don’t hit well enough. Sure they hit a lot of home runs, and those can get you back in a game quick. But solo home runs don’t help too much when your team is down by three or four runs – and those solo shots are tougher to get off the aces of the bullpen. The point is, though, that the Rangers are only 11th in batting average in the American League, with a .260 mark for the season. And for all of their perceived struggles hitting with runners in scoring position, the Rangers are still batting .261 in those situations. Again, 11th in the AL. (Want to know why the Angels are so good? .310 with RISP, .290 normally.)

2. The Rangers don’t get on base enough. The average team on-base percentage in the AL is .338. The Rangers’ team OBP is .322. Only two teams in the AL – Kansas City and Seattle – have a worse OBP. Without the ability to get on base, the Rangers can’t have innings in which they have a bunch of baserunners get on base and create a rally.

3. The Rangers don’t take advantage of scoring chances. I mentioned above how much trouble the Rangers have hitting with runners in scoring position. Besides that trouble, however, the Rangers have problems scoring runners in situations when they don’t even need hits. Take, for example, the top of the 6th inning of tonight’s game: Elvis singles to left, Ian fails to move him over. Michael Young doubles (bad luck on the ground-rule part) him to third.

Second and third, one out. Rangers are down 5-0, but two runs gets them right back in the game. Still, even a fly ball scores Elvis from third. But Marlon and Andruw both strike out, game remains 5-0, missed runs end up being the difference in the game.

The Rangers have had far too many chances like that in the 6th – runner in scoring position, less than two outs, and can’t even get an out that could score the run.

Every loss hurts right now. While the Rangers didn’t fall any further out of a playoff spot, the Rays are a very beatable team. To have a day when both the Angels and Red Sox lost and not take advantage…the Rangers can’t afford to have too many games like that.

So if they’re going to make the playoffs this year, they’re going to have to do something they haven’t done much this year.

Come from behind.