If nothing else, the Rangers are making the Astros season as miserable as their own. Houston has won the AL West six of the last seven years (the only other team to win it in that time is, surprisingly, Oakland) and been to the
Championship Series seven straight times. This year could snap that streak.

Trying to hold on to the last gasps of their own season, the Rangers only hope for a nearly-impossible playoff berth and knocking the Astros off their perch is to sweep Houston. (Then win about sixty-five percent of the rest of their games, but let’s sweep the Astros before we talk about after that.)

When Houston took a 1-0 lead in the second, the Rangers chances of winning the game dropped dramatically. It meant, in order to win, they would have to score at least two runs, a daunting task for this Rangers squad. 

When, in the top of the eighth, with the score tied 1-1, the Astros strung together a bit of offense to take a 2-1 lead, it was just the kind of game the Rangers normally lose. They cannot score after the seventh, they cannot come from behind. But Corey Seager did what he so often does. He tied the game in the bottom of the eighth with a home run.

Of course, the Rangers picked the most Ranger-like of ways to lose the lead in the top of the tenth, on two consecutive hit by pitches. 

In the bottom of the tenth, now trailing 3-2, the Rangers first two batters do what Rangers do in critical offensive situations. They both struck out. Then, the most unlikely thing happened. Josh Smith smacked a two-run game-winning walk-off Astros-sinking home run. The Rangers won. Or, more importantly, the Astros lost.

The Rangers absolutely must win the next two. But they can’t sweep three games without first winning the first one.  

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