HOUSTON — You always have to feel good with Jacob deGrom coming to the mound in a must-win game. Everybody in the Rangers’ clubhouse would have told you so entering Wednesday’s series finale against the Astros.
On Wednesday, deGrom uncharacteristically allowed five runs in five innings as the Rangers fell, 5-2, to the Astros at Daikin Park. By being swept in the three-game set, Texas also dropped the season series, while their current losing streak reached four games.
“I didn’t do a good job tonight,” deGrom said. “That’s why we lost the game.”
The Rangers rotation, which has been the club’s biggest strength all season long and held an MLB-best 3.30 ERA entering the series, gave up 17 runs across the three-game set among Jack Leiter (6 R, 3 ER), Merrill Kelly (6 ER) and deGrom (5 ER).
The sweep in Houston is the first time that Rangers starting pitchers have been tagged with three straight losing decisions since deGrom, Kelly and Patrick Corbin from Aug. 8-10 against the Phillies. The five earned runs match a season high for deGrom, as his ERA rose to 3.01. He has now given up 24 home runs, which is the second most in his career. (He gave up 28 in 201 1/3 innings in 2017.)
The right-hander has allowed one or more homers in 10 of his 13 starts since July 1, including multiple home runs in five of those games. The Rangers are just 5-11 in deGrom’s starts when permitting a long ball, as opposed to 10-3 when allowing none.
“We needed to win,” deGrom reiterated. “Then I go out there and put us in an early hole. The guys did a good job of scoring a couple runs and then I gave it back up. It was frustrating. I didn’t make any pitches when I needed to. I was not very good, and we lost the game because I was not very good.
“Again, we definitely needed to win this one, and I did not do my job.”
The Rangers entered the series on Monday having won 16 of their past 21 games amidst a flurry of injuries to major contributors like Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Evan Carter and Nathan Eovaldi. Against the odds, they still were able to put themselves in a position to play meaningful baseball in September.
It’s all fallen apart quickly.
They improbably willed themselves back into contention in late August and early September, but now find their postseason chances slipping more and more by the day. Texas is now five games back of the Astros in the AL West and 4 1/2 games back of the final AL Wild Card spot.
“That’s baseball,” said outfielder Wyatt Langford. “You can go from being really hot to really not really quick. It sucks that it came at this time. …I ‘d say it’s pretty much as frustrating as it can get already. We don’t want to come in here and play like this. I’m sure we have to win pretty much every game so we’re gonna try and go out every day and win that day. Control what we can control.”
Everybody — fans and opponents alike — felt like the Rangers were done a month ago. It will obviously be an uphill climb if the Rangers want the season to extend into October.
But this team has been known to show resilience at every roadblock they’ve run into. With just nine games left, they’ll need every bit of it.
“We know our backs are to the wall,” said Bochy. “So now we have to look at it like we have nothing to lose. Go out there and give it everything we got to find our way back in it. [We need] to get back to playing good baseball. … We still have a little time — granted, not a lot. That margin of error has gotten real small.”
