Rangers won’t panic after latest hiccup

MINNEAPOLIS — It’s only two games, the Texas Rangers insisted Saturday, and 64 remain before they will let anyone tell them they weren’t playoff contenders in baseball’s second half.

There’s no sense of urgency, the Rangers said, even though they are farther behind the American League West leaders than they have been all season.

But dreadful pitching and offense that has led to consecutive losses to begin baseball’s second half, the Rangers said, must stop ASAP.

If it doesn’t, the Rangers could be pushed aside instead of making a serious push into the postseason picture.

Justin Morneau had five RBI, and Livan Hernandez allowed only five hits in seven strong innings as the Minnesota Twins routed the Rangers 14-2 at the Metrodome.

The Rangers have been outscored 20-2 since the All-Star break, and they trail the first-place Los Angeles Angels by 9 1/2 games in the AL West.

"There’s no panic here," second baseman Ian Kinsler said. "It’s not like this is the end of the season. It’s two games. We still have a third of the season left. We have time. It’s two games."

The one Saturday, which followed a 6-0 loss Friday, marked the Rangers’ second-worst defeat of the season and is topped only by the 19-6 disaster at Detroit that left the Rangers 7-15 on April 23.

The Twins had season-highs in runs and home runs with four. They scored 13 of their runs between the fourth and seventh innings — including six in the sixth — to turn a 2-1 deficit into night to forget for Rangers starter Matt Harrison and relievers Dustin Nippert and Josh Rupe.

Harrison pitched well through four, but a 1-2 curveball to Morneau caught too much of the plate and turned into a bases-clearing, three-run double with two outs in the fifth.

"I think it was a game-changer, definitely," said Harrison, who is 1-1 with a 9.20 ERA after three big-league starts. "I didn’t make the key pitch when I needed to."

The Rangers have seven games remaining on a nine-game road trip, and their three opponents are a combined 32 games over .500. But this isn’t the time to start worrying about their deficit in the West, shortstop Michael Young said.

He draws strength from the first two games after the All-Star break in 2005. The Rangers had two hits in their first 16 innings and were outscored 13-2, but they weren’t put away by the division-winning Angels until September.

"We can’t start looking at the standings right now," Young said. "We still have over two months of baseball to play. We have to win every game we can and claw our way back into this race."

In other words, it’s only two games, and there’s no sense of panic.

"Obviously, you want to win every game possible now," reliever Eddie Guardado said. "If we panic, then it gets worse. Let’s just play it day by day and see how we do, but we’ve got to do better than the last two games. No doubt about it."