April review: Texas Rangers’ offense sputters while revamped pitching staff has impressed
The Texas Rangers (16-15) finished the first full month of the season on Wednesday. The month of April looked a bit like the 2024 season which was marked by injuries and uneven play.
After an 8-2 start, things cooled down toward the end of the month.
What’s been the takeaway from the Rangers’ April play?
Rangers offense slumping
The Rangers are one of the MLB’s worst offensive teams, ranking near the bottom of the league in hits (21st), walks (29th), runs (26th) and batting average (22nd). After finishing last season in the bottom half of the league in hits, home runs, and runs scored, the Rangers made additions in the offseason, which haven’t provided the expected boost in the offense’s production.
Manager Bruce Bochy has tried tweaking his lineup order, moving Marcus Siemen out of his customary lead-off spot and moving Adolis Garcia out of cleanup amid both players’ struggles.
The move has yet to get either jump-started; Garcia is hitting .224 with four home runs with 15 RBIs, while Semien is hitting .182 with two home runs and 13 RBIs.
One of the few exceptions was the Rangers had their best offensive game of the season on Tuesday, April 29, when they scored 15 runs against the Athletics in a victory.
After the game, Bochy talked about good offensive games becoming contagious.
“It’s good to see the guys break out, have a good game. A lot of guys had great-bats, some success, and sometimes that just gets contagious,” said Bochy, “But they’re trying to be more disciplined. They’re trying to get the quality [at-bats] that we know they can get. And they did a nice job tonight working the pitchers.”
Bochy said he hoped the team would be able to use the game to build confidence but in their first game post-offensive explosion, the Rangers struggled to muster offense in a 7-1 defeat to the Athletics on Wednesday.
Adding injury to insult, the Rangers’ offense is without star shortstop Corey Seager, who is on the 10-day injured list with a right hamstring strain. He has been the team’s most consistent hitter since arriving in Arlington.
Injuries, no problem
Seager is not the only injured Ranger, the team has three starting pitchers on the injury list: Kumar Rocker, Jon Gray and Cody Bradford.
Despite the injuries, the Rangers’ starting rotation has been one of the team’s biggest strengths. To start the season, Texas starters have posted a 2.99 ERA, second-best in the MLB.
Of the six pitchers who have started for the Rangers this season, four have ERAs under 3.00, including Tyler Mahle.
The Rangers signed Mahle in the 2023 offseason, but he missed most of last season recovering from Tommy John surgery. He is 3-0 with 1.14 ERA and opponents are only batting .165 against him.
Mahle has the lowest ERA among all American League pitchers and trails only the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the MLB.
Jack Leiter had a strong showing in spring training that carried over to the regular season, with the Vanderbilt product going 2-0 with 2.03 ERA.
Leiter’s Commodore teammate Rocker, on the 15-day injured list due to a right shoulder impingement and figures to be the first starter to return, eligible on May 8, with Gray and Bradford on the 60-day injured list.
Bullpen moves paying off
The Rangers remade their bullpen in the offseason, and the tweaks have paid off with the team near the top of the MLB in saves (3rd), ERA (11th) and opponent batting average (9th)
Their signings, Hoby Milner, Robert Garcia, Jacob Webb, Chris Martin and Shawn Armstrong have all performed well, with each having at least 13.0 innings pitched to start the season and all but one having an ERA at or below 2.77.
Luke Jackson has stepped into the closer role and, after a rough first game, has been perfect on save opportunities and has started the season with a 0-3 record with a 6.55 ERA and is eight for nine in save opportunities.
Jacob deGrom’s start to the season
Jacob deGrom is playing in his first full season after missing most of last year recovering from Tommy John surgery. He looked sharp in Tuesday’s win, his first of the season. He is 1-1 with 2.73 ERA.
DeGrom’s latest start saw him give up no runs and four hits in seven innings of work with seven strikeouts in a win, his first since the 2023 season, against the Athletics.
Degrom acknowledged the lack of run support in his win but said he believes the team’s lineup would turn things around.
“I try not to look at any different, I try to just go out there and put up zeros, give them a chance, If you can keep it close, you got a chance, a bloop and a blast, and our staff has done a great job of it, we’re not really looking at the scoreboard. We’re just trying to go out there and give our offense a chance and you know where we’re at right now, obviously, we’d like to have more wins, but we’re above 500 and we’re right there. Once the offense starts clicking, which they’re going to do, I think we’ll be in [a] pretty good spot,” said deGrom.
In deGrom’s starts this season, he’s only given up more than two runs twice this season, has pitched at least five innings in each of his last three starts and has only given up three runs over the past 18.1 innings.
Bochy spoke about deGrom’s performance this season after the game, saying the pitcher looks better with each passing game.
“He’s had a couple really good games, I thought. But, yeah, he was really good tonight. I said when the season started, it’s just going to get better with him as he builds strength and stamina up and really good command, and really good stuff, and it’s just getting better with him.”
The Rangers have relied on their pitching throughout the early portion of the season, but will need their lineup to break out of it’s slump soon if they don’t want to risk an early-season swoon.
After concluding their four-game series with Oakland on Thursday afternoon, the Rangers host Seattle in a three-game weekend series at Globe Life Field.
