The Texas Rangers scored four runs but the Minnesota Twins scored six runs.
The Rangers stayed true to who they were until the bitter end. A sauceless bunch. The 2026 Rangers were a dry, unseasoned chicken breast served with a side of tap water.
Today’s game had everything you suffered with all summer bundled up neatly and handed to you with the neat little bow on top being another year without postseason baseball.
A first inning run allowed? – ✓
A disappointing, brief outing from MacKenzie Gore? – ✓
Endless fruitless micromanaging from Jared Michael “Skip” Schumaker? – ✓
At-bats ruined by poor ABS usage or non-usage while the other team shaved outs on the margins with successful attempts? – ✓
The lineup turtling up at the first sign of adversity? – ✓
Bunts while down multiple runs? – ✓
Tyler Alexander? – ✓
The Rangers won’t win the American League West because they did not win today. They would not have won the American League West regardless because the Houston Astros won today (presumably, they’re leading the Pacific Coast League Athletics 8-0 as I’m writing this). You could take solace in that fact, I suppose. Nothing Texas could have done today mattered in the end.
Of course, that ignores the other like 30 weeks. The fact is, the Rangers were incredibly fortunate to even be in the position they were in today — a bad baseball team with a chance to win the division on the last day — and they even squandered that fortune.
They didn’t squander it because the A’s laid down for the Astros. They squandered because they themselves went 6-7 against the A’s, including losing both series in West Sacramento, where Houston has outscored them 21-2 in the last two must-win games. They went 5-8 against the soon-to-be 100-loss, last place Angels. They went 2-4 in the final two series of the season against two clubs who ended the year a combined 151-173, losing both series. The Rangers had no business being alive and they still chose death.
Anyway, the Astros can have the title of worst playoff team, even if that would have been kind of novel in the way that the Rangers strive on being novel. I can’t imagine I’d be able to stomach the October version of Skip Schumaker managing in the playoffs where you are already expected to be playing 4D chess.
There’s some irony in them not finishing the season at .500 given their never-ending desire for keeping their record evening all year. But missing .500 by a game and not losing the division on a tiebreaker to a team they went 4-9 against is probably the more just outcome, despite the fact that Houston is also cheeks.
A couple of seasons ago, after the last game of the year, I wrote reflecting almost more on the 2023 October and how the 2024 season hadn’t dulled my enjoyment for what they accomplished. On the last day of the 2025 season, I wrote that while the season had basically become an unpleasant slog, I had come to understand that I would miss them.
This year, though, I won’t miss this team. Except for Nathan Eovaldi. That guy is awesome.
I’ll miss baseball, though. Eventually. Maybe it’ll even come back in 2028.
Player of the Game: At one point after weeks and months of being something of the poster boy for the ABS inefficiencies the team managed during this inaugural year of the challenge system, and for being among the main problem spots at the bottom of the order, Danny Jansen had begun to creep onto the list of my all-time most disliked Rangers.
Today, he homered for Texas’ only run until it was 5-1 in the eighth inning (when fellow catcher Elias Diaz also homered before Corey Seager ended his season with a two-run home run in the ninth) in a game the Rangers had to win and didn’t.
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