HOUSTON — When the bottom of the 11th inning began Saturday, the Rangers stood on the brink of a historic win against the odds.
The odds caught up.
It’s easy to look at singular plays or decisions from a 5-4 walkoff loss to Houston, but that would be glossing over the much bigger, more obvious picture. Teams that pile up historic strikeout totals and refuse to take walks rarely win. Add in the kind of futility in run-scoring opportunities that has marked much of the season and the odds were too stacked against the Rangers. Alas, the only team to ever strike out as many as 19 times in a game without a walk and win will remain the Oakland A’s of 1997.
For the Rangers, it just ended up being another loss, the one that clinched a losing record heading into the All-Star break. With one game remaining, the Rangers are 47-49. It was the seventh time in the last month the Rangers have had the chance to get back to .500 and they’ve lost them all.
“It’s been tough to break that barrier and I know that’s frustrating,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “But you can’t say enough about how hard they fought to come back in that game. We gotta win games; we’re not playing to get to .500, we’re playing to get past that. It’s been a tough mark to get to. But we did a lot of good things tonight.”
They did. Jacob deGrom put together another quality start and will go into the All-Star Break having made a team-high 19 starts and with a team-high 112 innings. The Rangers came back from a 3-1 deficit to tie the game with two outs in the ninth on a sky-high home run by Kyle Higashioka. They took the lead in the 11th on a leadoff single by Adolis García.
But, there’s too often a “but” with this team. After a week of offensive efficiency, they turned wasteful on Saturday with 19 strikeouts, including four strikeouts by Golden Sombrero winner Ezequiel Duran. Duran’s ERA (0.00) and batting average (.130) are way too close for comfort. They went 2 for 17 with runners in scoring position. Corey Seager couldn’t score from second after a leadoff infield double off the shin off Framber Valdez in one inning, being held at third on Wyatt Langford’s two-out single. They couldn’t advance a runner in the 10th. And after García gave them the lead in the 11th and took second on the play, they couldn’t advance him either.
That put unbearable weight on a bullpen that has been worked hard in the first half and was down two tired relievers entering Saturday. Neither Jake Latz, who threw 54 pitches two days earlier, nor Shawn Armstrong, who had pitched two of the previous three days, was available. By the time the 10th rolled around, he had three pitchers left: Robert García, Hoby Milner and just-recalled Caleb Boushley.
Garcia did a masterful job of escaping the 10th after a leadoff sacrifice bunt moved the winning run to third base. But it also meant, either using him for a second inning, which has become a rarity, or turning the 11th to Milner. Bochy opted to ride his highest-leverage reliever a second inning with the lead. Garcia lost command and walked the first two hitters, even as one was trying to bunt. It forced Milner in with no outs and the bases loaded. A sac fly and a single from Zack Short later and the Rangers were walking off losers again.
“I wanted to go back out for the second,” said Garcia, who has pitched more than one inning on just three occasions this year. “My head was: ‘I got this.’ I was very confident. It had nothing to do with going out the second time. I just couldn’t put the ball in the square. I got a little too rushy to the plate. Maybe I tried to do too much.”
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