Rangers Roundup: Bring out the brooms!
Texas swept the Rays and is now 8-2 on the year. Everything's all good, right?
The Rangers Roundup is back!
In case you missed the first two Roundups of the season, here’s a brief explanation of what this is all about. This will be the last time I do this, so everybody better be paying attention.
The Rangers Roundup will be your one-stop shop for all things Texas Rangers. After every series — usually on Monday and Thursday mornings — the Roundup will land in your inbox and give you everything you need to know about what’s happening in Arlington. I’m excited to start this up, and I’m even more excited to share it with all of you.
How this all works will be flexible. I’m giving myself the freedom to switch up the format if need be, so if you have any feedback, feel free to send it my way. For now, I’m modeling it somewhat after what the great Jamey Newberg does in his game recaps, which are done in a “Three Up, Three Down” format. The Rangers Roundup is not a copy, but it is certainly inspired. After each series, I’ll give you a number of things I’m pleased with, alongside some aspects that might not be as great. The number of those items is subject to change depending on the circumstances. There will also be some other nuggets thrown into the newsletter as well. Again, all of this is flexible. I’ve been known to change my mind on a whim before.
Bring out the brooms, because sweeping is what Texas just did over the weekend. The Rangers won all three games against the Tampa Bay Rays, winning 5-2 on Friday, 6-4 on Saturday, and 4-3 on Sunday (in walk-off fashion, no less).
The process to get those wins has been flawed, as I’ll talk about in just a little bit. Nonetheless, the Rangers are 8-2 and have won five games in a row. As Jamey Newberg mentioned in one of his game recaps recently, isn’t it great when we can vividly remember the only losses of the season and the wins start to blur together? I probably butchered the living daylights out of that reference, but what does it matter?
I’ll dive into the extensive highlights and lowlights of the weekend, but here are some brief bullet points from the weekend:
Wyatt Langford continued his heroics, blasting a go-ahead two-run homer on Saturday night to propel the team to victory.
Jonah Heim hit a walk-off single on Sunday that gave the Rangers the win and also continued Heim’s fantastic start to the season.
Tyler Mahle, Jacob deGrom, and Kumar Rocker all delivered good to decent starts.
Marcus Semien and Corey Seager hit their first home runs.
Luke Jackson is 5-for-5 in save opportunities as the bullpen continues to be lights out.
Josh Smith is amazing. He hit a solo homer on Friday and was a massive contributor on Saturday and Sunday.
That’s just the quick rundown of the highlights of the weekend. Below, I’ll dive into some of those points more extensively, while also discussing some of the not-so-good aspects of the Rangers so far this season. It’s time to round up (ha ha, get it?) the weekend that was for the Texas Rangers!
Party Like It’s 2012
Just win. That’s all that matters.
The process certainly is still an integral aspect of winning, there’s no doubt, but if the result is still positive, there isn’t much to quarrel about. That’s where the Rangers find themselves right now. They’re 8-2 and have the best record in the American League. No other team in the AL has more than six wins. It’s the best start to a season for the Rangers since the 2012 campaign, where they also began 10-2 and ended up finishing 93-69 before losing to the Baltimore Orioles in the one-game Wild Card round. Everything should be all rosy and nice, but there’s still a lot of room for growth.
Every road to success is different. For instance, in 2023, the Rangers finished second in the league in team batting average (.263) but blew 33 saves and had a team ERA of 4.28. That’s been flipped on its head so far in 2025. Texas is dead last in team batting average (.192) and 26th in OPS (.610). But the pitching has buoyed the entire operation with a 2.93 ERA through 10 games, which ranks fifth in MLB. And so far, the Rangers have yet to blow a save. Even without the lineup producing at a high level, the team has still managed to find that recipe for success.
I certainly hope and believe that the offense can get back on track soon. While it’s great that the arms have kept them in games, winning with almost no production from the top guys in the lineup is unsustainable. The good thing for the Rangers is that they have 152 games to figure it out, but hopefully, they'll do so much sooner.
Josh H. Smith
While the majority of the lineup has been treading water, Josh Smith has been bucking the trend. After his breakout 2024 season that saw him win the Silver Slugger Award for the utility position, Smith has found consistent playing time at third base since Josh Jung went down with an injury. He's taken full advantage, slashing .333/.440/.571 (1.011 OPS) so far.
His ability to make contact and get base hits has been extraordinarily useful to the Rangers so far, especially this past series against the Rays. In the series opener on Friday, Smith collected two base knocks, including a solo homer in the seventh that gave Texas a much-needed insurance run.
While he didn't get a hit on Saturday, he still managed to reach base three times via walks, one of which was intentional — just the second of his career.
Finally, in the finale against Tampa Bay on Sunday afternoon, Smith went 3-for-4 with two runs scored, the second of which was the winning run in a 4-3 walk-off victory for the Rangers.
With Jung potentially returning by Tuesday, there might be some trouble finding ways to get Smith into the lineup. The way I see it, there shouldn't have to be. With Smith's versatility, there's always a position that manager Bruce Bochy can slot him into. For example, what's stopping the Rangers from moving Wyatt Langford to center field and putting Smith in left? Or, if Corey Seager needs a day off, Smith is more than capable of playing shortstop. Just put him somewhere because he's the perfect remedy for an offense that's struggling mightily at the moment.
Pitching To Victory
Where would the Rangers be if not for the awesome pitching?
I don’t know, probably in the dumpster with Oscar the Grouch. Or perhaps even in the terrible-looking landfill that fills the Lewisville skyline. Maybe both.
The entire pitching group (with few exceptions), from the starters to the bullpen, has been nails. As mentioned previously, the collective unit has an AL-best 2.93 ERA. That number would be even lower if it weren’t for the 14-3 drumming against the Reds in Cincinnati last Monday. Take that game away and the team ERA plummets to 2.11.
It was Nathan Eovaldi and Jack Leiter who tossed gems last week. While the pitching performances were not as exceptional this past weekend against Tampa Bay, the duo of Tyler Mahle and Kumar Rocker (plus Jacob deGrom, who had an OK day, at least by his standards) certainly got the job done with their outings.
Mahle’s second start of the season was a massive improvement from his first, where he didn’t get out of the second inning. Against the Rays on Friday, Mahle threw five innings of one-hit, no-run ball, striking out five while only walking two.
The command on his fastball was much better, although he was still missing up with the pitch more often than he’d probably want to. But it was still his go-to pitch; of the 83 pitches he threw, 42 were fastballs. Most impressively, at least in my opinion, was the fact that he drew 18 swings on the fastball and only two resulted in balls in play.
Texas doesn’t expect Mahle to provide ace-like performances every time he toes the rubber. He’s the perfect guy to go out there every five days and deliver five or six innings while allowing minimal damage. If he does that consistently, the Rangers will more than take it.
Meanwhile, getting even just a semi-good start from Rocker would’ve been encouraging, given his last month or so. There’s no doubt that he’s still a work in progress, so getting any positive momentum was going to be a good sign. And while he wasn’t nearly as sharp as his Vanderbilt counterpart Jack Leiter was last Wednesday, Rocker delivered his best outing of his professional career as he went five innings and allowed just one run. Most importantly: zero walks.
It’s definitely growth from the young righty, who has so much potential but has yet to unlock it consistently. Sunday afternoon’s start was not the peak of what Rocker could provide the Rangers in the long term, but it was certainly a glimpse into what could be given in the future. In the short term, however, I still have my doubts about how long he’ll remain in the big-league rotation once some other Rangers starters like Cody Bradford and Jon Gray come off the injured list. Fortunately for Rocker, that might not happen for several weeks or even a couple of months, so if he continues to maintain a performance level at or above what he gave on Sunday, he’ll be a key cog in the Rangers' pitching machine moving forward.
MiLB Getting Started
The MiLB season is now fully underway. In case you’re unaware of the affiliates in the Rangers’ system, here’s the brief rundown:
Triple-A: Round Rock Express
Double-A: Frisco RoughRiders
High-A: Hub City Spartanburgers
Low-A: Hickory Crawdads
Double-A Frisco, High-A Hub City, and Low-A Hickory all kicked off their 2025 campaigns this past weekend, with all three affiliates going 2-1. Round Rock is a full week into their season and is 5-4.
I was at Frisco’s Opening Day on Friday and got to witness top prospect Sebastian Walcott for the first time in person. Keep an eye out for a piece on him over the coming days, as he had a fantastic weekend at the plate in what could be the season he makes the jump to the big leagues.
Some Hits Would Be Nice
So, yeah. The offense kind of stinks right now.
I mentioned earlier the abysmal team batting average and OPS. And besides Josh Smith, Jonah Heim, and some clutch hits from Wyatt Langford, nobody is hitting for Texas at the moment.
There have been flashes of brilliance, however, that lead me to believe there’s an avenue for this lineup to be as potent as we all believe it can (and should) be. On Saturday, Marcus Semien led off the bottom of the first inning with a homer to put Texas in front 1-0. Later in the frame, Jake Burger launched a three-run bomb to extend that advantage to 4-0. That inning led me, and perhaps some other fans, to believe that the turnaround for the offense was right around the corner.
It was not.
Even after Corey Seager hit his first home run of the season on Sunday afternoon to give the Rangers a 2-1 lead, I still felt like there was so much more in the tank. That feeling still persisted despite the walk-off single from Heim that delivered Texas its eighth win of the season.
There’s just more to give from that unit, and if they don’t start providing it soon, the Rangers are going to start losing some games that they probably shouldn’t.
The good news is that they’re still winning in lieu of these problems. That was not the case last season when the offense was sluggish and the pitching was subpar. So, if there’s any silver lining, it’s that the results are still there, and as I mentioned earlier, all that matters is winning.
Injury Update
Injuries are not fun, but the situation for Texas could be a whole lot worse. Josh Jung made two rehab starts in Frisco this past weekend, and those seemed to be successful. He made the trip with the Rangers up to Chicago, and the team expects him to be in the lineup on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Texas placed Jack Leiter on the 15-day IL after he was pulled from his start last Wednesday because of a developing blister. There’s no need to be concerned, at least in the long term. The Rangers just want to nip this in the bud before it could potentially become a problem down the line if he kept pitching through it. There’s no need to push it, especially this early in the season.
With Leiter on the shelf, Patrick Corbin was recalled from Triple-A and will make his Rangers debut on Tuesday against the Cubs. How Corbin performs is an intriguing question. I don’t have a lot of optimism that he’ll be able to buck his bad form to the wayside as I outlined in my piece about his signing with the team a couple of weeks ago, but I’m still interested to see how this experiment goes. All I know is that it’d be in the best interest of the team to score as many runs as possible when Corbin is on the mound, just to be safe. Maybe that’s the motivation the lineup needs to start getting its act together.
Up Next
The Rangers are off to Chicago to face the Cubs for a three-game set at Wrigley Field.
Wrigley is such a special place. I was able to go there in September and was mesmerized by how magical it all felt. I wonder if the players feel the same way I did.
Here are the pitching probables for the series:
Monday: (TEX) Nathan Eovaldi (1-0, 1.20 ERA) vs. (CHC) Justin Steele (2-1, 6.89 ERA)
Tuesday: (TEX) Patrick Corbin (0-0, -- ERA) vs. (CHC) Jameson Taillon (1-1, 6.97 ERA)
Wednesday: (TEX) Tyler Mahle (1-0, 1.35 ERA) vs. (CHC) Shota Imanaga (2-0, 0.98 ERA)
One look at the forecast for Chicago over the course of the three days that the Rangers are up there sparks terrible memories of playing in frigid weather for me. The temperature at first pitch for tonight’s affair is 33 degrees, while the highs on Tuesday and Wednesday are 40 and 44 degrees, respectively. According to Jared Sandler, tonight’s game will be the coldest game Texas has played since 2013, which was also at Wrigley Field.
Hitters, at least historically, hate hitting in colder temperatures. So, buckle up, everybody, because we could be in for another low-scoring series.