SEATTLE — Clarity, for lack of a better word, is good.
Nobody ever said anything about it being pleasant.
And here is what was made very clear during a wretched weekend in Seattle: Forget about discussing repeats and playoffs, the Rangers don’t even belong in the same conversation with AL West leading Mariners. Over the course of a weekend sweep, capped by Sunday’s 5-0 win, Seattle left no doubts that, as currently constructed, the Mariners are a tier above the Rangers in every way. That is, if you can’t already gather that from the standings.
The sweep left the Rangers 8.5 games back in the AL West, their biggest deficit since the end of the 2022 season. Yes, if you are wondering, a team has come back from a bigger deficit on Father’s Day to win this division. The bad news: The last team that lost a bigger lead was the Rangers in 2012. Hey, maybe Julio Rodriguez will lose a ball in the sun on the final day of the season. If the sun comes out in Seattle and the roof is open against Oakland. Hey, there’s always a chance.
“There is still a lot of baseball left,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “We haven’t gotten on our roll yet and we will get there. But we have got to pick it up.”
Beyond that? Not much.
And believe us. We tried. After the Rangers failed to score more than three runs for the fifth time in a six-game road trip and the 36th time in 71 games this year, we started to ask Bochy what more he could do to try to shake up the offense. Started. Never really got it all the way out. Bochy cut in.
“What do you want me to do?” Bochy said. “We are a better offense than this. But we’ve got to find a way to put some runs on the board. We’ve mixed it up. We’ve changed it up. We’ve tried things. And we will keep trying things until we get better.”
On Sunday, the Rangers started a lineup that didn’t feature a hitter with a batting average above .270. Then again, neither did Seattle. That’s the thing: The Mariners have had just as many problems as the Rangers when it comes to scoring runs and they’ve still found a way to win.
Seattle made the most of what it had. It took 10 two-out walks during the series leading to 10 two-out runs. Seattle scored four of its five runs with two outs on Sunday. On the other hand, the Rangers had two runners reach base — both with two outs — against Logan Gilbert and Austin Voth.
The lineup is just a litany of woes.
Corey Seager went 0 for 4 on Sunday, 0 for 12 for the weekend and extended his o-fer against Seattle to all 20 of his at-bats this season. Adolis García, moved to the No. 3 spot in hopes of jump-starting his season and the Rangers offense, went 0 for 3 and has a .489 OPS since sliding into the spot; he’s batting .161 since May 1. Wyatt Langford still doesn’t have a home run that cleared a fence. Given regular playing time on the road trip, Ezequiel Duran went 3 for 22 (.136). Leody Taveras, given the day off Saturday, went 0 for 3 to extend his current skid to 1 for 36.
Catcher Jonah Heim missed the series, attending to the birth of his third child, as did Josh Smith, the team’s most consistent hitter, because he is dealing with tightness in his glute/hamstring area.
“All I can do is reiterate that we’ve got to start playing better,” Seager said. “We’ve got to score some runs. We never get the lead and keep it. It’s frustrating to come in here against the division leader and get swept.”
Scoring runs has been an issue all year. The work of the starting rotation has been the counter to that issue. The starting rotation has largely kept the Rangers in games. But the quiet part that became all too clear over the weekend is this: Good as the starting rotation has been, Seattle’s rotation is better.
“Their starters, that’s the story,” Bochy said. “That’s a really good staff.”
Over the weekend, Seattle starters went at least six innings in each game; the Rangers didn’t get there once. The number of hits allowed by Mariners starters over three games (nine) equaled the number of runs allowed by Rangers starters. Seattle starters had a 7-to-1 strikeout-to-walk rate; the Rangers didn’t even get to 2-to-1. Seattle starters — and relievers — didn’t allow a home run over the weekend. The Rangers have gone four straight games without hitting one.
Gilbert, who started the finale, has pitched 14.2 scoreless innings against the Rangers this year and has a 1.42 ERA against the Rangers over his last nine starts, dating back to 2022. You can bet if the Rangers make the playoff race legitimate Gilbert will find his way into starts in each of the series in Seattle (Sept. 12-15) and Arlington (Sept. 20-22).
“He never makes you feel comfortable up there,” Seager said.
“We know what we signed up for, matching up against the best starting rotation in the the league,” said Nathaniel Lowe, whose two-out, fourth-inning double marked the only time a Ranger reached second base Sunday. “We didn’t do a good job. We have got to get better. I don’t want to say I don’t care about how far back we are; we care, but the more important thing is we need to start playing our brand of baseball. What we played up here is not our brand.”
Well, at least that was abundantly clear.
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