The Texas Rangers avoided being swept on Sunday by the Milwaukee Brewers, going 2-4 on the road trip. On paper, the Rangers are still in the playoff race, but it's only because the American League is so bad. Don't get me wrong, if the Rangers make the playoffs by default, then I will take it. The reality is at some point the Rangers' play is going to knock them completely out of the race. We might be seeing the start of it.
The month of August hasn't been kind to the Rangers. They are 4-11 on the road. This included an inexcusable road trip to Anaheim and Sacramento. At times this week, the Rangers have simply appeared as they have no interest in playing baseball.
The Rangers division rival, the Astros, fired GM Dana Brown and all but told Joe Espada that he would be gone after the season. The Astros responded by winning 2 of 3 from the Yankees on the road. After Sunday the Rangers will have 25 games left. Other than the A's and Mets, every team they will face is currently in the playoff hunt as well.
The Series against the A's is a huge one. No matter what the A's record is, they seem to always cause the Rangers problems. The Rangers need to win all three versus the A's. They get the Rays for 4 games at the end of the week. They need to do no worse than a split in that series. No worse than 5-2 should be the expectation this week regardless how you do it. If they lose both of those series, then the season is probably over.
If the worst-case scenario happens, then there are some things I want to see from the Rangers offensively in the final month of the season with an eye on the 2027 season.
Let's start with Wyatt Langford. Over the weekend, the story came out that Wyatt was dealing with injuries. So are a lot of other players in MLB. The sooner the Rangers realize that they are out of the playoff hunt, they will shut Wyatt Down. Last September, when the Rangers at one point were 9 games over .500, Wyatt disappeared and hit .175 in the month of September before eventually being shut down.
I want to see the Rangers stay in the hunt long enough to force Wyatt to have to play at least most of the month. Why, because he is the same player he was in 2024. Almost every at bat Wyatt just swings hard. He needs to learn to make adjustments at the plate. Not every at bat in every game situation needs to be just going to the plate and swinging hard.
This isn't college baseball with aluminum bats and MLB baseball is almost four seasons past the shift. I can't say this enough; game situations should determine what you do at the plate in a lot of situations. This isn't rocket science; it's been done by MLB hitters since the beginning of baseball. If Wyatt is ever going to become the player we all keep holding our breaths for, then his approach has to change.
After being Mr. September in 2023, Evan Carter hasn't played September baseball. Coming into Sunday, Carter is hitting .196 and is below .300 in on base percentage. Carter is coming off a wrist injury that ended his 2025 season. Sometimes wrist injuries are tough to comeback from for hitters. Marcus Semien struggled at the plate in 2018 after breaking his wrist with the White Sox in 2017, as did Josh Jung in 2025. Evan didn't just forget how to learn to hit, I honestly believe that this is part of the recovery process from the wrist injury.
I want to see Evan finish the month of September strong. I want to see him in the lineup daily, regardless of left- or right-handed pitchers. The knock is he can't hit left handers. Well, he hasn't really hit right-handed pitching this season either. Evan just turned 24, this is his first full season in the big leagues. Let the kid play.
Same goes for Justin Foscue. After going from a top 100 prospect to a forgotten farmhand, Foscue has had a pretty good run this season. He came into Sunday with 9 homers and an .802 OPS, same as Josh Jung on both numbers. Obviously Foscue has seen way fewer at bats than Jung, but he has hit at every level in the minors in his career and is showing signs of being able to do the same in the big leagues.
The knock on him at the plate is he can't hit right-handed pitching. That's fair. Going back to the 2023 season in the minors, he has been way better vs lefties, but out of his 9 home runs this season, 3 have come against righties. If he can raise his on base percentage against right-handed pitching, it would go a long way in keeping him in the line up more. Foscue is 27. He's older than Evan or Wyatt, but I still believe that he can be a solid contributor to the Rangers next season.
Then there is Cody Freeman. Freeman coming into Sunday was hitting .269, with a .356 OBP in 20 games. The Rangers 2025 minor league player of the year now has 56 big league games under his belt. Cody gives you something that this team severely lacks, energy. His time was cut short due to a back injury out of spring training. Before his last call up, Freeman was hitting .308 at Round Rock. I want to see Freeman in the line up daily and at third base.
If Josh Jung comes back this season, great. Josh was having a pretty good season at the plate prior to his calf injury, but that's the problem with Josh Jung. He isn't reliable. I understand this is far-fetched. I'm also not the first to suggest this, but maybe, just maybe if you can convince Josh Jung to make a position change to first base, it will take some of the wear and tear off his body. Maybe, just maybe, if you can take some of the wear and tear off his body, maybe we will see a little more power come from Josh Jung's bat. However, that would involve benching the current occupant at first base.
Coming into Sunday, Jake Burger has hit .227 since the All-Star break with a .293 OBP. Enough is enough. His numbers have shown you that Globe Life Field is not the ballpark for him. He would have more value to a team is a different park, but that's a discussion for the offseason. Last season he hit .216 with 7 homers at home. This season, he is hitting .212 with 7 homers. It's time to move on.
Speaking of time to move on, for two seasons, the Rangers offense has been terrible. It's time to move on from hitting coach Justin Viele. No hitting coach from last season's staff should have been allowed to stick around, yet here we are. Is everything his fault? No, but he has been unable to change anything with the current roster.
This team needs a new voice offensively. I don't pretend to know what that voice is with a month left in the season, but you can't be seriously considering bringing back Viele in 2027, so cut ties with him before the A's series on Monday. It should have been done weeks ago after the last week of July after the Rays/Astros road trip. Who knows, with a month to go, maybe a change sparks a crazy run to the playoffs.
