the Rangers are smack dab in the middle of one<\/a> with 20% of the season remaining. Record aside, that shouldn\u2019t be overlooked. There is an opportunity to seize.\u00a0<\/p>\nArticle continues below this ad<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal is to get into the playoffs, not to have the best record,\u201d manager Skip Schumaker said Friday ahead of the Rangers’ 2-1 walk-off victory over the Angels. \u201cThe goal is getting in and seeing what happens. I\u2019ve been very grateful to be part of a lot of playoff teams as a player, coach and manager and the two times we won, we didn\u2019t have the best record.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is the kind of thing a manager whose team doesn\u2019t have the best record would say. But it\u2019s also true. \u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2006, the Cardinals won an aughts version of this year\u2019s AL West race, capturing the NL Central despite an 83-78 record, then won the World Series. In another year that shall not be named, the Cardinals were 10 games out in the NL Central and 10 \u00bd back in the wild card race after Game 129, coincidentally the same number of games the Rangers have played this season. Those Cards got healthy, got hot and squeaked in as the lone wild card team by a game over Atlanta. And then David Freese happened. Sorry about that, Rangers fans. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Yes, the Rangers have been a disappointment to this point. Disappointment and opportunity can, however, coexist. And opportunity now trumps disappointment. They began Friday a game out in the AL West and in a tie with Minnesota for the final wild card spot. \u00a0<\/p>\n
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It can \u2014 and should be \u2014 exciting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Maybe that\u2019s obvious, but at the same time, allow us to point out that outside of that magical 2023 season, the Rangers have spent exactly one day over the last decade within a game of a playoff spot at this point or later in a season. So, before you drill too deep into the Cowboys depth chart, it\u2019s worth remembering there is meaningful baseball to be played.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a chance to do something special,\u201d said Joc Pederson, who has appeared in more playoff games than any current Ranger and takes none of them for granted. \u201cIn the past 10 years, this organization’s been in the playoffs one time. There is an incredible opportunity for the team, for the city and for the buzz around the town to rise up and make the best of this chance. We are in a great position.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very fortunate to be a part of the Dodgers and Braves, where in my first seven seasons I was in the playoffs every year and it just became the norm. But I don\u2019t take any of this lightly. I haven\u2019t been since \u201822. I want to go back.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Part of the conversation with Pederson on Friday was about perspective. He was in Arizona in 2024. The Diamondbacks went 90-72. Lost out on a wild card berth due to a tiebreaker. The record didn\u2019t matter when they went home after Game 162. \u00a0<\/p>\n
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Part of it was a plea. Real playoff opportunities are few and far between. Despite everything that\u2019s happened to this point, the Rangers are in the sprint. A buzz around a playoff race couldn\u2019t hurt. \u00a0<\/p>\n
This Rangers team is veteran-laden. They are realistic enough to know they haven\u2019t performed to preseason expectations to this point. They\u2019ve also been around long enough to know that expectations don\u2019t matter when there are 33 games left to play. All that matters then: Those 33 games. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to block the record out,\u201d said Jacob deGrom, who despite 2,000 career strikeouts<\/a> and two Cy Young Awards, has exactly one postseason start in the last decade. \u201cYou know where we’re at. I’ve said it before. There\u2019s a lot of pitches I wish I could have back. There are a lot of games I wish I could have back. I\u2019m sure there are a lot of guys who also wish they could have something back.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cBut you can’t look at things that way. What is ahead of us and what can we accomplish? What can we do? We can go out and win as many games as possible, win as many series as possible, and hope that puts us in a good position to make the playoffs. And then you try to make something special happen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Because the playoffs \u2014 and playoff races \u2014 are special.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Rangers players celebrate their 2-0 victory against Washington Nationals after a baseball game at Globe Life Field,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,89744,89898],"class_list":["post-413521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-tp-texas-rangers","tag-tp-skip-schumaker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413521","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=413521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}