First half ends with Rangers out at home

This isn’t how the Texas Rangers wanted to finish the first half.

Not the score, not the way in which Sunday’s 2-1 loss to the San Diego Padres went down, not losing seven of their last eight games (all at Globe Life Park) before the All-Star break.

The struggles, which began in earnest June 20 in Chicago with the beginning of a six-game losing streak, have removed the confidence-building glow the Rangers started showing with their May surge.

Instead, Texas limps into the break losers of 15 of its past 20 games, in third place, and six back of the first-place Los Angeles Angels in the American League West.

It was a particularly vexing loss to end the first half, too.

The Padres took a 1-0 lead in the second inning when Will Venable’s one-hopper bounced off first baseman Mitch Moreland and rolled slowly into right field.

Second baseman Rougned Odor was hustling to track it down but the ball kept rolling toward right fielder Shin-Soo Choo, who admitted he assumed too early that Odor was on it.

Venable made it all the way to third with a triple and scored when Odor’s throw home on a grounder was in the dirt.

“I gave up too early,” Choo said. “And the outfield has the responsibility to go get it, to make it easier. That really changed the game today.”

It gave Padres starter Tyson Ross a lead and forced Rangers starter Yovani Gallardo to throw more pitches. He made another solid start but left trailing 1-0 after 5 2/3 innings.

“It was rough, especially to lose the last game of the first half,” said Gallardo, who took the loss despite lowering his ERA to 2.62. Despite a 1.29 ERA over his past 10 starts, the Rangers are only 6-4 in those games. Run support has lagged, especially lately, for Gallardo. Texas hasn’t scored a run while he was on the mound in his last three starts.

“I try not to think about it,” said Gallardo, who dropped to 7-8. “It’s one of those things I can’t control, I just have to keep the team in it. We didn’t have an easy task with Ross. He has good stuff.”

Also vexing for the Rangers? Their inability to win at home. At 16-26, no team in the majors has fewer wins at home. It continues to mystify manager Jeff Banister and his players.

“That is a mindset we need to have. Hasn’t worked out for us obviously,” Banister said. “Ultimately, it’s winning wherever you’re at. It’s not just here, it’s on the road. We’re at the point we just need to win ballgames wherever they’re at.”

After the Padres tacked on a run to take a 2-0 lead in the seventh, the Rangers stranded runners at third in the seventh and eighth innings. In the ninth, after Adrian Beltre singled and scored on Odor’s single, Leonys Martin struck out with the tying run in Odor at second. The Rangers were 1 for 8 with runners in scoring position, an area that has plagued them the past three weeks.

Choo goes into the break 1 for 17 with his batting average plummeting to .221. But on Sunday his defensive gaffe overshadowed his 0 for 4 day at the plate.

“Obviously, tough to see and tough to be part of, to allow a runner to go all the way to third base on a ball that barely got to the outfield,” Banister said. “Our thought process is anytime the ball is in play we go hard. We go after the baseball. That’s our mindset. That should be our mindset, and we didn’t.”

This story was originally published July 12, 2015 at 6:57 PM with the headline "First half ends with Rangers out at home."