For the second consecutive day, the Rangers were unable to score a run. The only difference last night was they didn’t have a game. All the other times, they just didn’t have game.

The Little Team That Couldn’t was off Thursday. Off in a different way than they are usually off.

Lost in all this losing is the emergence of Alejandro Osuna, the centerfielder called up from Triple-A Sunday in Chicago. Osuna, you might recall, jumped off the page in spring training. He led all Rangers with a .429 average, an incredible .523 on-base percentage and an elite 1.237 OPS. This wasn’t in a small sample size, either. He played the most spring training games of any Ranger. He had the most hits and most doubles. He hit everything hard.

The twenty-two-year-old younger brother of former big league reliever Roberto Osuna made quite an impression. But he had never played higher than Double-A, so that’s where he started the season. And every day the Rangers offense failed, it became increasingly harder to overlook his spring. What he was doing in the minor leagues was opening eyes as well. In 2024, Osuna was the Rangers Minor League Player of the Year, hitting .292/.362/.869 at both Single-A and Double-A.

His 2025 was just as impressive. After 31 games in Frisco, he was bumped up to Round Rock, where he kept scorching the ball. His OPS in Triple-A was .918. 

Those numbers would be hard to ignore in most years. This year, with the worst offense team in franchise history, with the worst offense in baseball, including many Little Leagues, those numbers shone like a beacon of hope.

In four games with the Rangers, he’s batting .300, with a .462 on-base. He hasn’t found his power stroke, but beggars can’t be choosy. The entire team has no power stroke. What Osuna has is spark and energy, and immunization from whatever ails the rest of this offense. 

It’s not fair to call him the savior in the same was Evan Carter was in 2023. But, judging from Osuna’s exuberance and ability to hit, he may be just that, and he may revel in it.

If nothing else, he is a bona fide alternative to Adolis Garcia once Evan Carter returns. With any bit of luck, the Rangers could have their outfield of the future, with Carter and Osuna only twenty-two, and Landford the old man at twenty-three. 

Even if he isn’t the missing link to solve this team’s offense, and it’s not fair to pin that assignment on one player, he offers something Garcia and Marcus Semien no longer do. 

Hope.

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