MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The beer and bubbly stayed on ice, and rather than loud music and cheers, the only sounds in the Texas Rangers clubhouse Sunday evening were of players saying goodbye and wishing each other well in the offseason.
What could have been a joyful moment for the Rangers turned somber as they fell one game short of a playoff spot.
Texas entered its season finale Sunday needing a win over Minnesota and a loss by the Houston Astros at the Athletics
to win the AL West. Instead, the Rangers got neither of their desired results. They lost 6-4 to the Twins while the Astros beat the A's 9-0, leaving Texas (80-82) one game behind first-place Houston (81-81) and on the sidelines in October for the third straight year.
Since winning their first World Series crown in 2023, the Rangers haven't finished a season with a winning record, posting victory totals of 78, 81 and now 80 in the past three years.
“We’ve got to figure out a way to get back,” first-year manager Skip Schumaker said. “The goal is always going to be to win. We didn’t win enough, and we've got to figure out how to do that.”
The Rangers entered the weekend tied with the Astros, but essentially a half-game back because Houston held the head-to-head tiebreaker after winning their season series. Texas needed to win one more game than Houston did over the weekend, but the Rangers lost two of three to the Twins (77-85) while the Astros won two of three against the Athletics.
Texas' struggles over the weekend were part of a pattern that dogged the team all season. The Rangers finished 35-46 on the road and 33-38 against opponents with a losing record.
“We weren’t good enough on the road, and we weren’t good enough against teams we should have beat, and that’s a reflection on me,” Schumaker said. “And I've got to figure out what to do this offseason — look in the mirror and figure out how to move this thing forward, because there’s too good of talent in that room for us to fall short.”
Right fielder Brandon Nimmo, an 11-year veteran who spent the first 10 seasons of his career with the New York Mets, said falling just short was a painful but familiar feeling.
“You can point it any number of two games throughout the season, and that’s a thing that I’ve, unfortunately, got real familiar with over the years,” Nimmo said. “You think of all the times that you maybe let one game slip away. I’ve had too much experience with this now, so that’s how I’ve dealt with processing it.”
Rangers shortstop Corey Seager, who hit his 20th home run Sunday but still finished with a career-low OPS of .736, said his offseason will come down to “figuring out that way to pick up that one extra out, one extra run.”
In the end, the fact that the Rangers were still vying for a playoff spot on the final day of the season was cold comfort.
“They gave it everything they had the whole year through 162, and I’m grateful for that,” Schumaker said. “But the goal was to get to the postseason and make a run, and we didn’t do that. We fell short, and that’s going to hurt for a little bit.”
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