<\/p>\n
Texas Rangers’ Corey Seager looks on after a baseball game against the Minnesota Twins, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026, in Minneapolis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Matt Krohn\/AP Photo\/Matt Krohn<\/p>\n
MINNEAPOLIS \u2013 When the final week of the Season That Wouldn\u2019t Die began, the Rangers<\/a> were in control of their fate in the AL West. \u00a0<\/p>\n It was time for their stars to take them the rest of the way.\u00a0<\/p>\n Instead, they took them into the offseason. And if you think this season was long and tumultuous, wait until you get a load of the offseason that began with the Rangers\u2019 6-4 loss to Minnesota Sunday. Winter is coming. And so is change.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n To be fair, this loss ultimately didn\u2019t matter much in determining the division race. Houston, on the West Coast, did what teams with a chance to clinch are supposed to. The Astros jumped out to an early lead at Sacramento and kept building on the way to a 9-0 bullying. Houston popped champagne in a minor league clubhouse for going 81-81 and surviving the West.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Rangers instead shook hands, hugged in the clubhouse and tried to come up with explanations for how they couldn\u2019t win the Most Winnable Division race ever. There are plenty of those. Most immediately, though, they went 2-4 against teams with losing records in the final week to continue a season-long trend of being able to neither beat bad teams nor any team on the road. All of which, Skip Schumaker said falls at his feet. He\u2019s the manager. And accountability, he said, was going to start with him.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe fell short and that’s going to hurt for a little bit,\u201d he said. \u201cThat’s the sentiment in the clubhouse. It’s what the coaching staff feels. The bottom line is we just weren’t good enough. We weren’t good enough on the road and we weren’t good enough against teams we should have beat and that’s a reflection on me. I\u2019ve got to look in the mirror and figure out how to move this thing forward because there is too good a talent in that room for us to fall short and we\u2019ve got to figure out a way to get back.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n This, however, extends beyond Schumaker\u2019s first year as manager. This was the third consecutive non-winning season for the Rangers. If we\u2019re keeping count, it\u2019s actually the ninth of the last 10, but recency here is significant. The current team is built around Corey Seager and Jacob deGrom. At least that\u2019s what their two contracts, worth a combined $68 million for next year, suggest.\u00a0<\/p>\n And those were the \u201cdudes,\u201d the Rangers expected to carry them in the final week. DeGrom flopped in Friday\u2019s start at Minnesota<\/a>, allowing eight runs in four innings, and had a 5.33 ERA in September. \u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cI take all the responsibility for us not making it,\u201d deGrom said after Sunday\u2019s game. \u201cI had to tell [media] too often about too many bad starts.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n MINNEAPOLIS, MN – SEPTEMBER 25: Jacob deGrom #48 of the Texas Rangers looks on during the game between the Texas Rangers and the Minnesota Twins at Target Field on Friday, September 25, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Michael Turner\/MLB Photos via Getty Images)<\/p>\n Michael Turner\/MLB Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n Seager hit a two-run homer on Sunday. Details: it came in the ninth inning after the Rangers were down by four. He\u2019d gone hitless in his first three at-bats, including an inning-ending double play in the first. For the final week, he went 4 for 25 (.160) with no walks and nine strikeouts. It put the finishing touches on the second consecutive season in which he missed 60 games due to injury. He finished with a .736 OPS, 145 points below his career average entering the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cObviously it\u2019s not where you want to be, but just proud of this team and how they fought towards the end, and all year,\u201d Seager said of the season. \u201cWe got through a lot of things. We never gave up on each other. I was just proud of the fight.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n He echoed his pride in the fight when asked specifically about the past week\u2019s performance. \u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n They were hardly the only guys who didn\u2019t come up big in the final week. Wyatt Langford continued to limp along to the end of the worst year of his young career. Evan Carter, on Sunday, tried to bunt while down four runs with one out and a runner on base. The bullpen, taxed like colonial Americans, crumbled under the weight<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n But Seager and deGrom will be at the center of virtually every conversation as the Rangers try to move forward and break their Cycle of Mid. If the Rangers are to improve, they are going to have to either convince owner Ray Davis to dig deep into his pockets, which seems unlikely given his hawkish approach to labor, or they\u2019ve got to reallocate dollars to find more creative solutions. Especially, if by some chance, owners get a salary cap. DeGrom, who turns 39, and Seager, who turns 33, ate up 30% of the team\u2019s salaries this season. The team can\u2019t continue to be that top heavy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n