ARLINGTON, Texas — The Texas Rangers are one game behind the Houston Astros in the American League West with nine games left. Texas lost 4-3 to the Boston Red Sox on Thursday night at Globe Life Field, while Houston beat the Kansas City Royals.
The teams had been tied atop the division at 76-76. Texas is now 76-77, and Houston is 77-76 and holds the tiebreaker. The Rangers are also two games back of the final AL Wild Card spot and tied with the Toronto Blue Jays for fourth in the Wild Card standings.
Texas Rangers’ Four-Game Winning Streak Ends In Series Finale
Thursday’s loss ended a four-game winning streak and kept Texas from a sweep. When the Rangers opened a road trip in Seattle on Sept. 8, they were 71-73 and two games behind Houston. They took two of three at Arizona for their first road series win since July 1. They then won the first two games against Boston, 4-2 on Tuesday and 7-3 on Wednesday.
Texas entered Thursday 72-1 when leading in the eighth inning or later. Trevor Story hit a go-ahead, three-run home run off Jacob Latz in the eighth to erase a 3-1 lead.
Every win and every loss counts differently for Rangers manager Skip Schumaker this time of year.
“I thought it was a really good series,” Schumaker said. “We would have loved to have gotten that last win, obviously, especially this time of year. Every win, every loss, counts in a different way right now. … But you move on to the next one.”
“That’s the only thing you can do. Every loss hurts right now, but we have a job to do and it’s to try to win however we can tomorrow,” Schumaker noted. “We had a chance to win tonight. We went down with our leverage guys. Now we do whatever we can to try to win tomorrow.”
Toronto Blue Jays Arrive Tied With Texas Rangers In AL Wild Card Race
Texas is 42-33 at Globe Life Field and 34-44 on the road. Six of its last nine games are at home.
Kumar Rocker (5-11, 4.54 ERA) opens the series Friday against Dylan Cease (11-5, 2.38 ERA) at 7:05 p.m. CT on Rangers Sports Network.
Cal Quantrill faces José Soriano on Saturday at 6:05 p.m. CT. Quantrill is 9-5 with a 2.90 ERA and has a 1.80 ERA over nine games since the start of August. In three career starts against Toronto, he has a 1.59 ERA.
Jacob deGrom starts Sunday’s 1:35 p.m. CT finale against a Toronto starter still to be announced. The two-time Cy Young Award winner is 11-9 with a 3.79 ERA and 194 strikeouts.
Latz still likes where Texas stands.
“I’ll regroup, we’ll all regroup, and we got another series to win,” Latz said. “We’ve gotta keep stacking series wins and wins in general. We’ve got nine games. We’re still right there. We know what we need to do.”
The New York Mets visit Globe Life Field from Sept. 22 to 24. Texas closes the regular season with three games at the Minnesota Twins from Sept. 25 to 27.
