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Texas Rangers right fielder Evan Carter dives but can’t catch a Detroit Tigers’ Jake Rogers fly ball during the seventh inning of a baseball game Sunday, May 3, 2026, in Detroit. (AP Photo\/Paul Sancya)<\/p>\n
Paul Sancya\/AP<\/p>\n
DETROIT \u2014 How can a team that fielded a franchise-best defense one season ago play error-free baseball, continue a stretch of\u00a0remarkable highlight reel-caliber plays<\/a> and still have a costly mess left over to show for it?<\/p>\n The Rangers might not be able to explain it, but in Sunday’s 7-1 loss to the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park, they proved those sequences of events to be more than just an abstract riddle. The defeat \u2014 which clinched a series loss and a drop to two games under .500 \u2014 was marred by a bevy of defensive miscues that either directly or indirectly contributed to more than half of Detroit’s runs. It mirrored a trend in which the once rock-steady Rangers defense has regressed to barely average in under a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n “We weren’t real fundamentally sound like we’re typically used to,” Rangers manager Skip Schumaker<\/a> said. “We had some really good plays. The outfield had some really good plays, there were some plays in the infield that were really good as well, but there were some plays that we’re used to making that we didn’t.”<\/p>\n It started in the sixth inning, while the Rangers trailed by a manageable two runs, when center fielder Evan Carter laid out to catch a shallow liner from Tigers catcher Jake Rogers. Carter whiffed, the ball rolled a ways, Rogers cruised into third base with a stand-up triple and scored one at-bat later when shortstop Kevin McGonigle singled off of right-hander Jack Leiter. Carter, the American League’s statistically best center fielder this season who made a fantastic catch on a long run in Saturday’s loss, has\u00a0earned himself the benefit of\u00a0the doubt<\/a>. In hindsight, though, the slow-footed Rogers would have been a significantly slighter threat at first base had Carter laid up and fielded a single.\u00a0<\/p>\n One run created by a questionable defensive decision is a\u00a0palatable offense. Four runs created by errant plays aren’t. In the seventh inning, with Tigers\u00a0left fielder Kerry Carpenter on first base with one out after a single, right fielder Wenceel P\u00e9rez hit a decently struck ground ball to first baseman Jake Burger. He bobbled the could-have-been inning-ending double play ball and only had time to flip it to Leiter at first base for the second out.<\/p>\n Make Dallas News a preferred source so your search results prioritize writing by actual people, not AI.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n The Tigers scored Carpenter one at-bat later when second baseman\u00a0Hao-Yu Lee hit a ground ball through the infield that his defensive counterpart Josh Smith couldn’t swat down, and after Rogers singled after him, another run scored when McGonigle singled into right field. Right fielder Andrew McCutchen, who turned back the clock with an impressive diving catch two innings prior, threw the ball back in to Burger as Lee jogged into third base. Lee started to turn toward home plate, and when Burger began to run across the infield to hold him at the bag in lieu of a throw, McGonigle took second base, and both runners were safe. Lee and McGonigle scored in the next at-bat when center fielder Matt Vierling doubled to give the Tigers a 7-1 lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n “I’d like that play tonight, for the double play, but we ended up getting one out,” Burger said. “I think as a collective, we’re confident in our defense, it’s just an ebbs and flows type thing.”<\/p>\n The flows have taken the Rangers from shutdown to shaky in the field. Their 16 errors, 6 defensive runs saved and minus-1 outs above average each ranked average or below before Sunday’s game. Schumaker pushed back on the notion that there’s been a deficiency of awareness or attention\u00a0in the field.\u00a0<\/p>\n “It’s not a lack of focus,” Schumaker said. “It’s more, when your offense doesn’t go, this thing gets magnified.”\u00a0<\/p>\n The offense didn’t go, again, despite the fact that the Tigers rolled out a gaggle of relief pitchers in a bullpen game. The Rangers didn’t score until the seventh inning when the combination of a passed ball and a softly hit grounder\u00a0from catcher Kyle Higashioka plated a run. They left eight runners on base, finished 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position and stranded their hottest hitter multiple times<\/a>. Third baseman Josh Jung reached twice \u2014 once on a single and again on an error \u2014 but the hitter in front of him (shortstop Corey Seager) and the hitter behind him (Burger) combined for four strikeouts.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n By signing up, you agree to our Terms Of Use<\/a> and acknowledge that your information will be used as described in our Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Their .686 OPS is now only three percentage points better than the .683 OPS that they posted last season when their spectacular rotation was often left out to dry.\u00a0Leiter, back at the ballpark where he debuted just over two years ago, was nearly spectacular in his own right Sunday evening. He\u00a0struck out five consecutive batters between the first and second frames, threw 19 of his first 23 pitches for strikes and was ahead in the count against Detroit’s first nine batters. It wasn’t until the fifth inning, when Tigers left fielder Riley Greene walked on four pitches, that Leiter allowed a base runner. He hung a slider to first baseman Spencer Torkelson in the next at-bat and was punished with a two-run home run into the left field seats before the defensive miscues increased en masse.\u00a0<\/p>\n “The line,” Schumaker said, “I don’t\u00a0think gives Jack justice with how he really pitched.”<\/p>\n The same can be said for a defense that didn’t have an error.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Rangers right fielder Evan Carter dives but can’t catch a Detroit Tigers’ Jake Rogers fly ball during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-277776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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