When you look at some of the numbers, they’re staggering. The Rangers have the best over pitching in baseball, having passed the Mets for lowest team ERA at 3.24, with the second-best rotation ERA at 3.26 (to the Mets 3.23) and the second-best bullpen ERA in baseball at 3.30 (to the Giants 2.81).

The Rangers have the best defense in baseball, giving up the fewest unearned runs, with the best defensive efficiency rating in baseball, and the fewest errors.

You look at that and you say, this has to be a team to be reckoned with in the playoffs. If only they could make the playoffs.

Yesterday, the Rangers won 3-2 in ten innings because their pitching and defense once again held while their flailing bats finally came through.

When you look at what the pitching and defense are doing, it’s almost criminal what the offense is forcing on this team. A lot of people don’t like the extra-innings rule with the ghost runner at second, but that was the only way the Rangers were going to get a runner to second yesterday. By the rules. They couldn’t do it by the bat.

The Rangers never had a runner at second yesterday. In the third, Alejandro Osuna walked and came around to score on Corey Seager’s home run. They touched second on their way around the bases. 

But they never actually had a runner standing at second yesterday until the tenth inning. Other than the two runs they scored in the third, they got a single in the first, a single in the fourth, a walk in the fifth, a walk in the sixth, and a walk in the ninth. Not a single time were they talented enough at the plate to move the runner to second. 

Only when it was mandated that they start a runner at second in the tenth did it happen. That runner eventually scored on a Marcus Semien walk-off single to give the Rangers an excruciating 3-2 win.

Maybe the Rangers should petition the commissioner’s office to play the extra-innings rule every inning. It might be their only chance of scoring while their elite pitching and elite defense keeps them in games.

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