The Texas Rangers have certainly had high and low points this season.
With just 11 games left in the 2026 Major League Baseball season, the Texas Rangers are starting to play with a sense of urgency that just might earn them a playoff spot.
After defeating the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday night and Wednesday night, the Rangers are now winners of four games in a row and are tied with the Houston Astros for first place in the American League West Division. It has been a season filled with mediocrity for a team that has struggled to consistently play winning baseball, but Texas is not done yet.
With the regular-season slate nearing its end, we do not yet know whether the Rangers will be one of the teams participating in October. But, we can identify what has been good and what hasn’t regarding their season, and that is what ESPN MLB Insider Bradford Doolittle has done.
The biggest success
Each season, Doolittle does an exercise for all 30 MLB teams in which he identifies the biggest success and the biggest disappointment for each club.
I am going to reference what Doolittle thinks while adding thoughts of my own. To start, Doolittle points to the play of Ezequiel Duran as the biggest success for the Rangers.
It is easy to see why Doolittle takes this view. Duran has been a stud and the quintessential team-first guy, which is needed in a utility player. As Doolittle pointed out, Duran has been consistent at the plate while starting at least six games at four different positions.
Over 142 games played and 499 plate appearances, Duran has a .271 batting average, a .332 on-base percentage, a .441 slugging percentage and a .772 OPS with 17 home runs. His 17 homers are a career high, as are his 80 RBIs.
Third-year man Justin Foscue should be an honorable mention in this category, as the 27-year-old third baseman has improved dramatically as his role has increased.
After appearing in just 19 total games in his first two seasons with the Rangers, Foscue has jumped up to 92 appearances this season. In that time, he has produced a .268/.330/.493 slash line with an .823 OPS and 11 home runs.
Foscue has demonstrated tremendous growth, and it seems like his best days are ahead of him.
The biggest disappointment
In this category, Doolittle pointed to the play of the Rangers’ rookies, which has been underwhelming.
According to Doolittle’s findings, Texas is the only club whose rookies have had a negative impact, which in this case is measured by WAR. While the 29 other MLB teams have gotten contributions in some form from their youngsters, the Rangers’ rookies have produced a minus-1.2 WAR.
While this is worth mentioning, not all of the veterans have been great, either, especially Corey Seager for most of the year.
Let me preface this by making it clear that Seager has turned things around lately. In August, he posted a .284 batting average with an .808 OPS, and through 13 games in September, he has a .302 average with a .975 OPS and five home runs.
The veteran two-time World Series MVP is doing what he can to help his team reach the postseason, but if Texas had gotten this version of him much earlier, things may have been different.
Between stints on the Injured List and brutal numbers when he was healthy, April through July was a bad time for Seager. There was even talk about whether or not he would be traded, and even though he has since begun to show up, the disappointment is wondering what could have been if he had not started the season as a shell of his former self.
