It’s September First. The dog days of summer are, indeed here. The waning days of the season.
Eight more three-game series, which in math terms means twenty-four more games, twelve on the road, twelve at home.
The Texas Rangers are two-and-a-half games out of the third wild card spot. By virtue of winning eight of their last ten games and five in a row, including their just completed three-game sweep of the Sacramento Athletics, Texas has passed Kansas City and Cleveland in the wild card race, and sits atop the pile of next in lines.
Next in line for the Rangers is three games in Phoeniz against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Josh Jung, Joc Pederson, and Adolis Garcia are leading the offense after being absent for most of the season. They combined for six hits and six RBIs in yesterday’s 9-6 win.
For Jung, it was his fourth multi-hit game in a row. His first half-second half splits are staggering. He hit .237 the first half. He’s hitting .315 the second. He had a .283 on-base percentage the first half, .356 the second. And his OPS went from .648, which got him sent to the minor leagues, to .860, which is approaching All-Star level.
For Garcia, August was by far his best month, which wasn’t saying much. But he hit .288 for the month, with an OPS of .813. That’s the kind of production that the Rangers needed all season but didn’t get.
For Joc Pederson, August has been his salvation. The Rangers signed him to a two-year, $34 million contract and it was quickly turning into the worst deal in Rangers history, and that’s saying something for the team that signed Chan Ho Park. Pederson batted .000 in July. Granted, he was on the I.L. most of that time, but that was just 131 points less than he batted in before he broke his wrist. His August turnaround looks like this: .286 AVG, .342 OBP, .942 OPS. This was the Joc Pederson the Rangers thought they were getting in April and May and June and July.
Is this last surge false hope? Is it one more punch in the gut from this Rangers House of Torture that is the 2025 season?
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