The Rangers catcher evened the game in the eighth, before the Rangers middle infield evened the series in the ninth.

This is the bane of  bad teams. Only a few of the cylinders fire at the same time.

When the pitching is good, the offense isn’t. When the offense is good, the bullpen isn’t. When the pitching and offense are good, the defense and bullpen let you down. Rangers fans have seen this all year, and there is no reason to think it’s going to change.

From the very beginning of yesterday’s game against the Mets it was apparent the Rangers offense was not going to deliver. They loaded the bases with no outs in the first and got just one run out of it. Via a lousy double play ground out.

Then, they got the first two on in the third and didn’t score.

That put so much more pressure on Darvish to be perfect. He wasn’t, of course, but he was very good. Not great. But very good. Any team would take three earned runs in seven innings of work.

Of course, once the offense was finally able to punch through the wall and tie in on a Chirinos home run, the Rangers would break down in other areas.

Matt Bush came in and promptly got himself in a jam by giving up a one-out double then a two-out walk. But then he did what he was supposed to do in getting an easy ground ball to finish the ninth.

Unfortunately, that ground ball was hit to the worst defensive second baseman in baseball over the last three seasons. Any time you rely on the middle of the Rangers infield when it really counts, it will be let down. And with the game on the line again last night, Odor and Andrus dropped their meat in the dirt once again. Odor bounced a throw that Elvis couldn’t hang on to, but should have. Odor was charged with the error.

In Odor’s defense, he is a natural Designated Hitter playing out of position.

It was a game a good team would have won. It was a game a mediocre team would have won.

It was a game the Rangers lost. Because they are neither good nor mediocre.

*****
NO GAME TODAY: