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Texas Rangers’ latest skid has left starting rotation a jumbled mess

Texas has lost six of its last seven and surrendered 29 runs over a three-game losing stretch.

ARLINGTON — Andrew Chafin trotted from the Globe Life Field bullpen to the pitcher’s mound for his Texas Rangers debut on Friday night. Garth Brooks’ “Friends in Low Places” played through the stadium speakers.

It fits the long-haired, mustachioed left-hander dubbed Big Country. It fits the state of the Rangers’ pitching staff too.

The Rangers’ starting rotation — quickly, and inauspiciously — has fallen into an awfully low place.

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It might be some kind of cosmic retribution (or, a regression to some kind of mean, if you prefer that methodology) for how well the collective group fared in the regular season’s first half despite a boatload of injuries that could’ve just as easily doomed the position. The staff was effective. The staff was increasingly deep with each starter that broke free of their rehab shackles. The staff compensated for ghastly offensive shortcomings.

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José Ureña’s start vs. the Boston Red Sox on Friday was indicative of how each of those benchmarks have changed. The 32-year-old right-hander — who had impressed in his first six spot starts this season — was shelled especially hard for a season-high seven runs in four-plus innings as part of a 11-6 series-opening loss at Globe Life Field.

It marked the third time in the Rangers’ last five games that a starting pitcher allowed five or more earned runs. The pitching staff has collectively allowed 29 runs in the last three games and an average of 7.4 runs in their last seven. Their once-welcomed strength has devolved into a weakness, and the ever-present manageable gap within the American League West is now 5 1/2 games between them and the first-place teams, the Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners.

“You’ve got to power through it, that’s all you can do,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said. “Yeah, we’ve had our struggles the last couple in St. Louis and a couple games there in Toronto. You’ve got to piece it together and keep battling, that’s all you can do.”

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Houston will come to Arlington on Monday and could meet the Rangers’ rotation in a state of uncertainty. Ureña was thrust into action as a spot starter after the Rangers traded Michael Lorenzen to the Kansas City Royals and placed Jon Gray on the injured list Monday. The Rangers had not yet named a starting pitcher for Saturday’s game as of Friday night. Nathan Eovaldi will pitch Sunday’s series finale. Things become murkier after that.

The depth is one concerning issue. The performance is another. Texas’ starting pitchers yielded a league-worst 10.07 ERA on the recent one-win six-game road trip in Toronto and St. Louis and averaged under four innings per start. Their 4.52 ERA since July 1 is below league average.

It’s a stark difference from the rotation which yielded 3.81 ERA (the sixth-best in the American League) in the first half of the season and buoyed a scuffling offense. The Rangers bats weren’t the issue Friday. The Rangers relied on home home runs (two from Corey Seager, one from Leody Taveras and another from three-hole hitter Marcus Semien) to produce five of their six scores in Friday’s loss.

But the Red Sox had already scored nine times before the Rangers carded their fourth hit. It was just the second time this season that the Rangers lost a game in which they scored six or more runs; they had been 27-1 prior.

“They took advantage of those mistakes,” said Ureña, whose sinker carried an average exit velocity of 96.1 mph. “They’re pretty good, too.”

Now, the big picture: Their starting rotation is currently limited to two healthy full-time starters in Eovaldi and Andrew Heaney. The quartet of Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, Tyler Mahle and Gray are on the injured list. Ureña, Bradford and Dane Dunning represent the depth options on Texas’ active roster.

Gray could miss up to a month with his groin strain. Scherzer did not think that his arm fatigue would land him on the injured list, which may suggest a lower level of severity, though the 40-year-old has now battled a laundry list of injuries (a teres major strain, back spasms and surgery, thumb soreness, a nerve issue and now a tired arm) in the one calendar year that he’s been a Ranger. Internal reinforcements at the minor league level are slim; right-handed pitcher Jack Leiter, for example, will not pitch for the Rangers on Saturday, and the organization has decided to skip his start this week at Triple-A Round Rock. Bochy said that the Rangers will call up a minor league arm if needed in the coming days, though.

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Relief does await in the form of Mahle. There’s a “good chance” that the 29-year-old right-hander will make his season debut for the Rangers on Tuesday vs. the Houston Astros, Bochy said. The 6.0 WAR that he compiled during the course of his last two healthy seasons (2021-22) ranked 24th among all major league starting pitchers according to FanGraphs. But Mahle — who made six minor league rehab starts in July — is just 13-plus months removed from the always cantankerous Tommy John surgery. The same can be said for deGrom, a fellow elbow surgery rehabber who’s not far from facing hitters for the first time in over a year.

Immediate success is not necessarily a given. Immediate success can’t necessarily be expected either.

The Rangers need some form of stability though.

They’ll find themselves in an even lower place if not.

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“There’s always an urgency,” said Seager, who became just the second shortstop in Rangers history to hit 20-plus home runs in three consecutive seasons. “You have to. We talk about it all year, it’s about winning series. We try to do it all year. We haven’t done a good job of it lately, but it’s time.”

Twitter: @McFarland_Shawn

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