The Texas Rangers have held their own, or more, against the following teams this year: New York Yankees, Kansas City Royals, Houston Astros, Los Angeles Dodgers, and the list goes on. You get the picture. When facing some of the best teams in the league, the Rangers have shown to be every bit as good.
But when facing teams like the Oakland A's, Seattle Mariners, Chicago White Sox and to a lesser extent, the Los Angeles Angels, the Rangers have played like a bad team.
it makes no sense, and it's been pretty infuriating to watch, especially once you reach this point in the season where every game means so much.
With 23 games remaining this year, the Rangers play Houston for seven of them and the Angels for four. Other than that, every team they face is below .500 and long gone in the playoff chase. Quite simply, the Rangers have to beat those teams.
Theoretically, the race is going to come down to those 11 games the Rangers have against their AL West rival Astros and Angels, but if they can't play against the mutts, they're not going to be hanging around for those games against Houston to matter much.
The Rangers have guaranteed themselves season series losses to Seattle and the Angels, and a couple of more losses to Oakland will do the same with the last-place A's.
It's time for the Rangers to play like contenders and waste the teams they should. That begins this weekend against Oakland.
