ARLINGTON — Remember how bad it was in the first month of last year, when the Rangers helplessly flailed at pitches, on the way to firing their hitting coach, demoting their big offseason acquisition and setting the stage for a season of panicked offense?
On Tuesday, the Rangers fell 3-2 to the New York Yankees, who got great starting pitching from one of the league’s brightest up-and-coming stars in Cam Schlittler. It was the second straight night the Rangers have scored just two runs. Pretty much right on par with their track record at Globe Life Field where they are averaging 2.64 runs per game. They’ve been held to three or less in 10 of their first 14 games at home.
The loss dropped the Rangers to 14-16, the first time they’ve been more than one game below .500 on the young season. With only an afternoon series finale against the Yankees remaining to close out April, it also clinched a losing homestand (they are 3-5) and a losing home record for the month (6-8). These are not ideal numbers for a team with precious few home games in the first half of the season.
Tuesday, despite a ninth inning rally that brought the winning run to the plate with one out, the Rangers looked more panicked at the plate than at any point this month. How else to explain Josh Smith getting called out on strikes on a pitch clock violation for the second time in a week? How else to explain Joc Pederson, on a heater and hitting cleanup, bunting with two men on and no outs? Not once, but twice in the same at-bat. Almost got away with it too, but reliever Fernando Cruz made a stellar sliding play coming off the mound, then threw to third from his backside. The Rangers went 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position, the lone hit coming in the ninth to bring up Corey Seager with the winning run on first base. He grounded into a double play. He's hitting .213 now.
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The Rangers enter the final game of April with a .692 OPS compared to .664 a year ago at the same time. It’s better, mostly due to a jump in OBP, but it’s still in the bottom 10 in the league, right there with the panicked group that includes two teams that have fired managers.
“I think they're definitely working hard and trying to fight their way out of some stuff,” manager Skip Schumaker said, sounding very much like Bruce Bochy did often last year, just without the baritone. “There are some guys that are hitting, Josh Jung and [Brandon] Nimmo are doing great. I thought we had some good at-bats. But I just think with runners in scoring position we are trying to force it. I feel like we’ve been expanding the zone with runners in scoring position.”
And maybe that pushed the Rangers into the game’s most unconventional decision: Pederson’s attempted bunt with two on and no outs in the eighth down by two. Then again, he’d just watched the Rangers put two on with no outs two innings earlier only to have Seager strike out for the fifth time in two days, Pederson pop to short and Jake Burger, suddenly in a dark funk, fly to right.
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In the eighth, Jung singled and Seager took a walk to bring up Pederson. He squared to bunt on the first pitch, but fouled it off. Conventional wisdom suggests that the potential rewards diminish exponentially to bunt again with the defense expecting it and down in the count. But Pederson squared, and nearly pushed it past the mound before Cruz slid to grab it. Then Burger and pinch hitter Ezequiel Duran each struck out to end the inning.
“Joc is a baseball player,” Schumaker said. “He's trying to do whatever he can to help us win a game. We've been struggling to score runs the last couple days. He's been swinging a hot bat for sure. But he's a baseball player, and he was doing whatever he could. The guy made a really good play. Joc is doing whatever he can. And I appreciate that. It says a lot about him.”
Asked directly if he put the bunt on, Schumaker said he did.
“I put the bunt play on the first pitch and he fouled it off and I still liked it the next time,” Schumaker said. “So, it was just good play by the pitcher to get there.”
Pederson was not available in the Rangers’ clubhouse afterward to discuss it. Nor was most of the offense.
It seemed pretty appropriate actually. After all, they’ve been absent most of the month.