Rangers’ April record sinks to 11-14 after loss to Angels

April is over, and the Texas Rangers are 11-14 after the season’s first month and grateful that the Oakland A’s and Seattle Mariners are keeping them out of last place in the American League West.

The Rangers sit third in the West, a spot where many predicted they would finish the regular season after consecutive division crowns. Third place is usually nothing spectacular, and the Rangers certainly fit that mold.

The 10-game homestand they completed with a 5-2 loss to the Los Angeles Angels provided a snapshot of what is hampering them — just about everything aside from starting pitching, though the rotation has been plagued by too many walks.

The offense has been hit and miss, and the bullpen and defense have been mostly misses. That’s not winning baseball, and the Rangers have the first-month record to prove it despite some evidence that they could have had a much better record.

Going 6-4 on the homestand created some positive mojo, but the overall record is a negative.

“We look at it as, yes, the record is not necessarily indicative,” manager Jeff Banister said. “It is what it is. However, it’s about winning baseball games. You’ve still got to get those positive wins and nail down wins when you get an opportunity.”

The Rangers open May with a nine-game road trip that begins Monday with the first of four games at first-place Houston. The Rangers went 15-4 against the Astros last season and 28-10 the past two seasons, so maybe this series isn’t as foreboding as it might appear.

Houston has the look of a complete team while the Rangers are playing like someone put sugar in their gas tank. Despite some obvious bright spots, beginning with Joey Gallo as the fill-in third baseman for Adrian Beltre, most of the Rangers’ talking points focus on the negative.

The middle of the lineup has struggled, beginning with Mike Napoli’s .146 showing. Rougned Odor and Nomar Mazara cooled considerably after sizzling in the opening week.

The bullpen is in disarray after Sam Dyson flopped the first two weeks at closer. Matt Bush hasn’t faltered as the replacement, but the Rangers are having some issues getting the ball to him.

The offense has been having trouble getting the ball to him, too. Before breaking through for 14 runs Wednesday, the Rangers had scored two or fewer in six of eight games. They responded with three runs Friday against the Angels, six Saturday and two in the finale. Shin-Soo Choo homered for one of the two runs.

The Rangers struck out 15 times Sunday, including the final four outs of the game. Odor’s strikeout to end the eighth as the potential go-ahead run came as he chased two pitches out of the zone after jumping ahead 3-1 in the count against Bud Norris.

Despite that effort, Banister believes that the offense is trending the right way after he spent the homestand shuffling the batting order in the hope of finding a spark. Two moves, batting Delino DeShields first and Carlos Gomez third, could be lasting.

“We had some guys who sparked up that really started swinging the bat well in Gomez and Choo, DeShields, and even Odor had some positive at-bats,” Banister said. “I think some guys started to find some rhythm at the plate. That was really our goal as we maneuvered some of the guys in the lineup to try to find some rhythm, try to string at-bats together.”

Martin Perez (1-4) lost for the fourth time in six starts this season after failing to close out his final two innings. The Angels scored three of their four runs against him in the fifth and sixth, and all three came with two outs.

He also walked four batters, giving him 19 this season in 31  2/3 innings and giving the Rangers 90 in 224  2/3 innings. Only two AL teams have been worse this season.

The Rangers haven’t had enough offense to consistently cover up their blemishes.

“When it’s tough to put all facets of the game together every single night, it is a challenge,” Banister said. “Doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes when your offense plays well, it does cover up some of those other parts of the game.”

The Rangers, obviously, aren’t giving up on the season. There’s still 137 games to go.

“We didn’t play up to our ability, and we haven’t played up to our potential. Not at all,” catcher Jonathan Lucroy said. “I think there’s a lot of positives to look forward to. A lot of times, it’s how you end, not how you start.

“That’s one of the great things about this game. The schedule is so long that a lot of the hot teams now aren’t there at the end. Just because we didn’t start off hot doesn’t mean we’re not going to be competing the rest of the year.”

This story was originally published April 30, 2017 at 7:16 PM with the headline "Rangers’ April record sinks to 11-14 after loss to Angels."