One game short again: Rangers finish 80-82 as Astros take a historic AL West

The math Texas carried into Target Field never got a chance to matter.

The Rangers lost 6-4 to the Minnesota Twins on Sunday in Game 162, CBS Sports reported, and finished 80-82. Houston beat the Athletics 9-0 in West Sacramento to close 81-81 and clinch the American League West.

Going into the day, Texas needed a win and an Astros loss; Houston already owned the season-series tiebreaker at 9-4, Dallas Sports Journal reported, so even a tie at 81-81 would have sent the Astros through.

The door closed in Minneapolis before Houston's finale was finished. The Astros led 8-0 in the eighth when the Rangers' last out was recorded, the same account noted.

A third October without Texas

Sunday's result left the Rangers without a postseason berth for a third consecutive season since they won the 2023 World Series. Per MLB.com's Kennedi Landry, cited by Dallas Sports Journal, Texas is the first American League club to win a World Series and then miss October in each of the next three seasons since the Kansas City Royals after 2015.

Houston's 81-81 finish is the worst record for a division winner in baseball history, Landry reported. The previous low marks were the 2005 Padres at 82-80, the 1973 Mets at 82-79, and the 2006 Cardinals at 83-78. The AL West's combined run differential of -471 was the second-lowest for any division since 1969, behind only the 2005 NL West.

Those numbers explain how a .500 Houston club still finished ahead. They do not explain how an 80-82 Rangers club got within one game of forcing the issue and then lost the finale it had to win.

Gore exits early; Seager's ninth-inning homer arrives too late

Minnesota scored first on a Josh Bell sacrifice fly. Rangers left-hander MacKenzie Gore lasted 2 1/3 innings - one run, one hit, one walk, zero strikeouts on 25 pitches - and finished his first Texas season at 8-11, CBS Sports and Dallas Sports Journal reported.

Danny Jansen tied it with a leadoff homer in the third. Chase Silseth relieved with one out in the bottom half; Bell answered with a two-run homer that put the Twins ahead 3-1 for good. Texas used six pitchers through five innings as manager Skip Schumaker chased matchups.

Jakob Junis walked three of four hitters in the fifth to force in a run, and Kody Clemens greeted Jordan Montgomery with an RBI single that made it 5-1.

Dean Kremer held Texas to one run on three hits over seven innings with no walks and four strikeouts, retiring 15 of his last 16 batters. Elias Díaz cut it to 5-2 with an eighth-inning homer off A.J. Minter; Royce Lewis answered immediately. Corey Seager's two-run shot in the ninth - his 20th of the year - made the final 6-4 without changing the outcome.

Josh Jung (fractured right hand) and Joc Pederson (fractured left hand) were already unavailable. Schumaker told Rangers Sports Network the bullpen had been stretched for what felt like a month and was gassed; Gore, he said, was not feeling great, so the plan was one time through the order before the matchup carousel.

Schumaker points at the mirror

The road ledger was 35-46. Against clubs under .500, Texas went 51-53, Landry's reporting showed. After the All-Star break, the Rangers dropped all but one series away from Globe Life Field.

"The bottom line is we just weren't good enough, weren't good enough on the road, and weren't good enough against teams we should have beat, and that's a reflection on me," Schumaker said in the postgame interview Dallas Sports Journal transcribed.

"And I 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."

Jake Burger called the miss bigger than one afternoon. Seager, who hit the ninth-inning homer after an 0-for-3 start, said the club was not good enough and needed to find ways to take the extra out and the extra win.

Houston opens a best-of-three Wild Card Series against the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday at Daikin Park, Yahoo Sports' postseason board listed. The Rangers' winter starts with an 80-82 ledger, a one-game gap, and a manager already assigning the first homework to himself.

Sources

CBS Sports

dallassportsjournal.com

Yahoo Sports