ARLINGTON, Texas — The Texas Rangers and Houston Astros are tied for first place in the American League West at 77-77 with eight games left. On Friday night, Texas beat the Toronto Blue Jays 7-1 at Globe Life Field, while Houston lost 6-2 to the Atlanta Braves at Daikin Park.
Houston holds the head-to-head tiebreaker after winning the season series, The Associated Press reported, so the Rangers would need to finish ahead of the Astros outright to win the division. Atlanta clinched a playoff berth with the win in Houston.
Texas took two of three from the Boston Red Sox before Toronto came to town. The Rangers lost the finale 4-3 on Thursday, and a night later Nicky Lopez had 2 hits in the win over the Blue Jays.
“You’ve got to look at the positives,” Lopez said. “We played a good team in the Boston Red Sox. We took two of three out of them. I know we’re running out of time, and the amount of games are a little bit slimmer now, and we’re down to single digits, but you’ve got to take the positives out of that series and move forward and not really sulk about it.”
“We’re still right in the thick of it. Everything’s still in front of us,” Lopez continued. “If we just win today and move on, I think that’s more of the mentality. It’s how do we come to the ballpark ready to win today.”
Texas Rangers One Game Out Of Final AL Wild Card Spot
In the Wild Card race, Texas is one game behind the Chicago White Sox (78-76) for the third and final AL spot. Chicago lost 11-8 to the Detroit Tigers on Friday and holds the tiebreaker over Texas, according to the AP.
Toronto (76-78) is one game behind the Rangers and two behind Chicago. The Blue Jays own the tiebreaker over the Cleveland Guardians (79-75) but not over Texas or Chicago, MLB.com reported. Cleveland leads the AL Central.
The Rangers have won five of their last six. Friday was the 23rd time this season Texas has gotten back to .500, the most in the majors, according to the AP. On Sept. 8, when the Rangers opened a road trip in Seattle, they were 71-73 and two games behind Houston. They have gone 6-4 since.
Against Toronto, Corey Seager doubled home a run in a four-run second inning. Six of the Rangers’ seven runs were unearned, as Blue Jays pitchers walked 10 batters and Toronto made three throwing errors. Trevor Williams threw the final 4 innings without allowing a run.
Before Friday, Rangers manager Skip Schumaker said every result counts differently this time of year. He made the comment after Thursday’s loss, which kept Texas from its first sweep since June.
“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 continued. “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.”
On Saturday, Cal Quantrill (9-5, 2.90 ERA) faces José Soriano (12-7, 3.56 ERA) at 6:05 p.m. CT on Rangers Sports Network. Jacob deGrom starts Sunday’s 1:35 p.m. CT series finale. Texas then hosts the New York Mets from Sept. 22 to 24 and closes the regular season with three games at the Minnesota Twins from Sept. 25 to 27.
Houston hosts Atlanta again Saturday night, with Hayden Wesneski (5-2, 3.70 ERA) opposing Grant Holmes (9-5, 3.49 ERA), the AP reported.
