After Rangers’ lousy first half, what will make second half a success?

The first half of the season for the Texas Rangers came to an end Sunday, even though they have played way more than half of their 2018 schedule.

They lost 6-5 to the Baltimore Orioles in game No. 97, one shy of the 1974 club record for longest first half. For those who don’t have a calculator handy, the portion of the season before the All-Star break this year covered60 percent of the 162-game campaign.

Is new math still a thing?

The number that matters most to Rangers players is 41, the amount of wins they accumulated. The glaring 22 games out doesn’t really matter, as the Rangers are too far out to contend in the American League West.

At nearly that far back in the wild-card standings, that number doesn’t matter much, either.

But the Rangers still have 65 games to go. Baseball will resume Friday, and when it does the Rangers’ aim will be on a successful second half.

What will make it a success depends on who is asked.

“It’s not secret that the first half has been really tough for everybody,” catcher Robinson Chirinos said. “We went through the off-season believing we’d do some big things this year, and the first half was the opposite of what we wanted.

“I hope we go into the break and relax and come back and play a great second half. Just be consistent. We’ve been having weeks when we play and beat the best teams, and then we have weeks where we don’t play well for two weeks.”

The Rangers jumped ahead of the Orioles 4-0 in the first as Ronald Guzman connected for the first grand slam of his career, but Mike Minor couldn’t keep the lead and lasted only 2 2/3 innings.

Shin-Soo Choo walked to start the game to push his on-base streak to 51 games, homered in the seventh to bring the Rangers within a run, and drew a two-out walk in the ninth. He was replaced by Carlos Tocci, who was thrown out at home trying to score on Elvis Andrus’ double.

He ran through the stop sign of third-base coach Tony Beasley,but no one was pointing fingers as players and coaches scrambled to catch flights for the All-Star break.

Wins and losses won’t be the ultimate measure of success after the break, though if the things the Rangers want to see happen come to fruition, they should pick up more wins.

Manager Jeff Banister said that the final 65 games will be successful if the bullpen continues to be a strength, if Rougned Odor and Jurickson Profar continue trending upward, if Delino DeShields’ offense comes around, if Joey Gallo can repeat his second half from 2017, and if Guzman and Isiah Kiner-Falefa and can take the next steps in their development.

The Rangers will give Martin Perez as many chances to start games as he can stand as they try to determine if they should pick up his club option for 2019. Perez, who allowed one run in seven innings Saturday in his first start since April 29, is scheduled for the second-half opener against the Cleveland Indians.

Minor will start the fifth game with the intention of giving him every opportunity to finish the season in the rotation and to avoid being shut down because he reached an innings limit in his first season back as an MLB starter.

Perez will be followed by Bartolo Colon, Cole Hamels and Yovani Gallardo before Minor gets his turn. Hamels will have two starts before the trade deadline for contenders to decide if they should try to trade for him.

Others thought to be trade candidates are third baseman Adrian Beltre and relievers Jake Diekman and Keone Kela. The Rangers seem to be showcasing Jesse Chavez of late, allowing him to pitch in late-inning situations.

Choo, the Rangers’ lone All-Star, might draw some interest but ultimately could be deemed too expensive by trade suitors. There hasn’t been much movement so far on any player.

“We’ll see,” general manager Jon Daniels said. “I think this time of year a lot gets said by people who work for clubs or writers or analysts. They kind of draw lines in the sand and make definitive judgments. Things change like that [snaps fingers].”

It appears the Rangers will take a we’ll-see approach for the second half, when the concept of success won’t entirely be measured by wins and losses.

That’s what happens after a quiet off-season and a bad start.

“We knew coming into the year we had work to do,”Daniels said. “We got off to a slow start. For us to contend this year we had to have a lot of things go right. When you get off to a slow start without a lot of margin for error, it is what it is.”

This story was originally published July 15, 2018 at 4:54 PM.