Texas Rangers starting pitcher Kumar Rocker sits on the bench after being pulled during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Minnesota Twins, Tuesday, June 16, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
LM Otero/AP Photo/LM Otero
ARLINGTON – Time-saving life hack: The next time you turn on or attend a Rangers game and the opponent scores at least two runs in the first inning, quietly pick up your remote or pack up your belongings, and you can save a good two-plus hours.
There will be no comeback.
They won’t even make it exciting.
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For the second straight night, the Rangers on Tuesday gave up multiple first-inning runs to a struggling Minnesota team and spent the rest of the night offensively sleep-walking on the way to a not-particularly-close loss. On Tuesday, in a 10-2 loss to the Twins, Kumar Rocker gave up a leadoff homer and a two-out run-scoring single. And that was that.
It’s a scene that has played out way too often this year. The Rangers have given up multiple first inning runs in 14 games. They are 0-14 in those games. They’ve averaged 2.14 runs per game in those losses and have been beaten, on average, by 3.86 runs in those games. No offense. Not close. No drama.
The stats say so much. The first inning turns the Rangers into zombies.
“That is real,” manager Skip Schumaker allowed afterwards. “It’s really important to put up a zero in the first inning. It’s been preached to our starting pitchers. We’re going to continue to preach it. When it’s a crooked number, that is a game-changing, momentum-shifting inning. right away, right out of the gate.
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“You’re out on the defensive side for a long time. When you come in, you’re now on the defensive side on offense, taking some pitches to give your guy a rest and all of a sudden, you find yourself behind counts and you’re back on the field again. We have to figure out the first inning. And that starts with me.”
Should have known it was going to be a long night when catcher Elias Diaz initiated a challenge on Rocker’s very first pitch of the game, which was called a ball. Maybe he knew Rocker needed all the help he could get. On replay, the ball missed the bottom of the strike zone by at least three inches. The next pitch was a four-seam fastball dead center. Trevor Larnach launched it 425 feet deep into the right field seats.
It was the 10th time this season the Rangers have allowed the game’s leadoff hitter a homer, the most by any pitching staff in the majors. It’s only a run, but it seems to act like a high-voltage jolt to the Rangers’ collective consciousness, sending them into a stupor the rest of the night.
It has led to a total of 54 first-inning runs allowed this season, second most in the majors, and the most the Rangers have allowed in any single inning. Opponents have hit a total of 23 first-inning homers, most in the majors.
On Tuesday, this was the collective result: Rocker allowed two more hits and a stolen base that produced the inning’s second run. It came on a 3-0 cutter to Dallas’ Josh Bell over the heart of the plate for a run-scoring single, who had hit a two-out, three run homer off MacKenzie Gore in the first inning Monday.
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“I think I got beat a lot of times on a pitch that wasn’t necessarily the best one I had at that moment,” said Rocker, who now sports a 9.69 first-inning ERA, the fourth-worst in baseball. “It was just a poorly pitched game overall, gave the team no shot to fight back at all. Just a frustrating, poorly pitched game.”
It, of course, got worse for Rocker, who didn’t make it through the fourth and was ultimately charged with seven runs. But the offense, or the lack of it, can’t be overlooked. When the Rangers get in an early hole, the inability of the offense to provide any hope is alarming. Then again, the offense has had a hard enough time the last two years when the pitchers put up zeros; can it really be expected to pick up the pitching staff when it struggles? That’s probably a rhetorical question.
It is almost as if they recognize their own inability to generate offense and get defeated by the early deficit. They say self-awareness is a good trait, but maybe not in this case.
“We need to be better in those situations,” said Jake Burger, the one starting position player at his locker 15 minutes after the game’s completion. “I do think you feel kind of deflated, a little bit, which shouldn’t happen. We get nine frames for a reason. Maybe we try to do too much. Guys are getting out of their comfort zone and maybe we try to do too much slugging instead of just taking good at-bats. It’s something we definitely need to evaluate and I think it needs to be addressed in a hitters meeting here.”
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Anytime now would be great.
If not, at least our little time-saving hack will come in handy. That is, if anybody keeps watching in the first place.