It is the story of their season. So, they might as well run it back again.
The Rangers turned another late lead into a narrow defeat on Wednesday, allowing the last-place Oakland A’s to score two runs in the ninth on the way to an 8-7 loss.
It was the Rangers’ 32nd one-run loss of the season, establishing a new Texas record for futility in close games. The Rangers had gone 21-31 in one-run games in 1988. These Rangers are 13-32. They won’t get to the live ball era record (since 1920) of 44 set by the Chicago White Sox in 1968. But, hey, they could still match the White Sox mark for most one-run losses by an AL team since the DH rule went into effect in 1973 and boosted offenses.
And as long as we’re tallying up futility: It was also the Rangers’ 10th loss this season in a game they led after seven innings.
We bring you these details, because at least they are a little different. As for the outcome: Same old, same old. A Rangers starter (in this case Dane Dunning) couldn’t hold an early lead, forcing the Rangers to turn to more relievers than they’d like. It’s all a recipe for the specialty of the house: Frittered leads.
“We missed a few spots and made some mistakes and they ended up in the seats,” interim manager Tony Beasley said. “They didn’t miss in the big moments. We just didn’t close it out. We didn’t take care of the ball as well as we should. We didn’t pitch well.”
Beasley tried to explain. So did Chris Woodward before him. The managers have changed, but the stories remain the same.
Here’s how it went down Wednesday: Handed a 5-1 lead going to the fifth, Dane Dunning walked Sean Murphy with two outs, then allowed a homer to Seth Brown and back-to-back doubles to cut the lead to 5-4 and force his exit from the game.
The Rangers built it back to 7-4 in the bottom of the fifth, but Dennis Santana allowed a two-run laser to Tony Kemp in the sixth.
And it stayed that way until the ninth when the Rangers turned a one-run lead over to Jose Leclerc. He allowed a leadoff single, got the next two outs and then left a slider over the inner half of the zone to Vimael Machin. He drove to the notch of the wall in right for a game-tying double. Dermis García followed with a bouncer up the middle that Corey Seager couldn’t field on the move, allowing the go-ahead run to score. It was initially called a hit, but later changed to an error.
Those are the details. But it was just the same very old story.
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