ARLINGTON, Texas — Texas Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said the club is digging itself a hole and there is only one way out after Saturday’s 6-3 loss in 10 innings to the Tampa Bay Rays, the Rangers’ second straight defeat at Globe Life Field.
With 19 games left and Texas 2 games out of the last wild card, Schumaker said the approach is the same one a team holding a spot would take.
“We are doing whatever we can to win,” Schumaker said. “If you look at the game tonight, we threw out our best pitchers. Latz was going to go out, if we were down one, he was going to go out to try to just keep it at one to see if we could come back against their back-end bullpen.”
“So we’re going to do whatever we can to try to get this right because time’s running out here,” Schumaker continued. “We’ve got to start collecting some wins because we’re digging ourselves a little bit of a hole right now. And we’ve got to fight out of it, and there’s only one way out, and it’s to fight, and we’ve got to get going.”
Where The Texas Rangers Stand With 19 Games Left
Texas is 70-73, 3 games behind Houston in the American League West and 2 behind Cleveland and Toronto for the third wild card. The Rangers had entered Friday at 70-71 and a half-game behind Cleveland for that final spot.
Saturday was the first time the Rangers had lost back-to-back home games since July 4-5 against the Detroit Tigers, according to Kennedi Landry of MLB.com.
“Tonight was a very winnable game, in my opinion,” Schumaker told Landry.
Two Comebacks, Two Losses
On Friday, Texas came back from 6-1 down on Elias Díaz’s grand slam and got the tying run to third base in the ninth inning of a 7-6 loss. Schumaker said afterward that moral victories are over for this club.
On Saturday, Evan Carter led off the eighth with a home run and Justin Foscue doubled home the tying run. Jonathan Aranda answered with a three-run homer off Jacob Latz in the 10th. It was Latz’s first loss since April 10.
Before Saturday’s game, Schumaker told Rangers Sports Network that his 2023 Miami Marlins and this team share a starting staff and a clubhouse of experienced winners. Miami made the postseason at 84-78 that year.
What Jacob Latz And Jacob deGrom Said After The Loss
Texas achieved a 40-3 record in Latz’s 43 appearances, excluding his two losses, and he mentioned that the moments now seem more significant than they did in April.
“It sucks because we’ve been fighting hard the last couple games, especially,” Latz told Landry. “To be on the wrong side of things hurts. But there’s still baseball left, and we have to keep going.”
Jacob deGrom allowed 2 solo home runs over 6 innings Saturday and struck out 7. There are games he wishes he could have back this season, he said, his own included.
“We know what our record is,” deGrom said. “We know we gotta win quite a bit. We gotta play really good baseball to get in this. I think we can do it. It’s keeping that positive mindset. Like we said, this one stings. It was a close game, and we weren’t able to win it. We gotta show up tomorrow and go from there.”
Tampa Bay is 85-57, the best in the American League. Before Friday, the Rays had lost 10 straight games in Arlington.
Sunday’s finale sends left-hander MacKenzie Gore (8-10, 4.31 ERA) against Rays left-hander Ian Seymour (9-6, 4.21). First pitch is 2:35 p.m. CT on Rangers Sports Network.
